Anti-corruption Day: LANW Leads Civil Society Groups To Walk Against Corruption In Kaduna

.says corruption responsible for Nigeria’s woes

As the world commemorate this year’s international anti-corruption day, a Kaduna-based non-governmental organisation, Legal Awareness for Nigerian Women (LANW) with support from MacArthur Foundation on Thursday led several civil society groups to walk against corrupt practices in Kaduna State.

Addressing the participants at Catholic Media Centre, Kaduna, the Executive Director, LANW, Barrister Rebecca Sako-John, called for collective efforts to reduce the corrupt tendencies in public and private corridors in other to move the country forward.

Rebecca, who addresses was delivered by Deputy Director, Hannatu Hauwan added that today also marked the last day of the 16 days campaign against gender-based violence as well as the human rights day.

“The themes for the year are: “Orange the world: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect” for the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence while that of the International Human Rights Day is “Recover Better.

“Stand up for Human Rights” drawing attention to the need to intensify efforts in addressing the COVID 19 pandemic and its attendant human rights challenges. The 2020 International Anti-Corruption Day celebrations themed Recovering with Integrity”, she highlighted.

According to her, “we find this theme very apt because it forces us to refocus our collective efforts in the campaign against corruption. Nigeria ranked 146 out of 180 countries in the 2019 corruption perception index.

“It is often said that corruption hurts the economy. We say that it hurts much more. It fans the embers of social injustice widening the gap between the privileged rich and disadvantaged poor further retarding progress in attaining sustainable development.

“Corruption is influenced by opportunity, pressure and rationalization. People often focus on corruption as the looting, misuse of public funds or power, overlooking everyday acts of patriotism, nepotism, abuse etc.

“Corruption prevents public services from getting to the people, breeds inefficiency as well as retards the democratic growth of the Nation.

“Almost all the ills in the society can be traced to one corrupt practise or the other resulting in the saying that corruption is endemic or systemic in Nigeria.

However, there must be an ethical and moral cleansing of ourselves as individuals to drop the garb of negative values and corrupt practices. Corruption must end with me and you”, she added.