Macarthur Foundation, Stakeholders Want Radio Dedicated To Fight Against Corruption
The MacArthur Foundation and some Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria have canvassed the need for a Radio Station to be dedicated and prioritized in the fight against corruption in the country.
This was as the organisations acknowledge the influence of an anti-corruption radio programme being produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development (PRIMORG) with the title; “Public Conscience” on the government and citizens.
Deputy Director, MacArthur Foundation, Africa office, Dayo Olaide, who led the commendations during a Radio program produced by the PRIMORG in Abuja, said that funding of the program by MacArthur Foundation has added significant value to the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
Olaide noted that Public Conscience afforded citizens the opportunity to be informed and also get feedback that can inform communication with the different agencies responsible for driving anti-corruption fight in Nigeria.
He noted that the use of media in the fight against corruption was key because more Nigerians can be reached through radio at the same time.
According to him; “The radio is able to reach millions of people; it enables the fight against corruption. Nothing can be more empowering than the type of work PRIMORG is doing and I think it is really rewarding to say that a lot of Nigerians whether they are professionals or not are able to call into radio town hall meetings, talk during Vox pop.”
Olaide also said that the Foundation placed so much trust on investigative journalism in the fight against corruption because of the critical role of the media and their responsibility to act as a watchdog.
In his words; “Corruption takes place in the darkness and at the middle of the night. So, you need a strong, enabled, investigative journalism practice to be able to expose and remove the veil of corruption.
“That is what is motivating our involvement, that we are trying to get media organizations to begin to focus more on investigative journalism in order to provide information that the public out there needs to get involved”.
Earlier, the Executive Director, PRIMORG, Okhiria Agbonsuremi said that Public Conscience was created to prick the conscience of citizens and make government to take necessary democratic actions against corruption and also to reawaken citizens’ consciences through radio across many states of the country.
He said; “we have been able to get at least fifteen states cutting across the five geo-political zones in Nigeria with the exemption of the Northeast and we have created content that reaches over 10 million listeners weekly through the syndication of Public Conscience in many radio stations across Nigeria.”
Agbonsuremi while thanking MacArthur Foundation for funding the program, however, noted that despite PRIMORG’s success story so far, the organization is not satisfied due to the government’s lackluster attitude to the issues of corruption.
On his part, the Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abuja Council, Emmanuel Ogbeche said PRIMORG has been incredible for the past two years and drawn the needed government attention.
Ogbeche said; “I remember the yellow Fever and Lassa Fever cases, government agencies made frantic efforts to tackle those two diseases and I think action was taken to remedy that effort. So, I am fully persuaded that radio has added value to the issue of transparency and accountability in public affairs”.
Speaking in turn, the Chairman, Pegi Residents Association, Taiwo Aderibigbe said that Public Conscience has been impactful to the dwellers of the community, stressing that the program helped to educate the residents of Pegi community and other dwellers of the Federal Capital Territory against sharp practices and extortion of unmetered customers by some staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company.
“I must confess that in the last two years, the service provided by AEDC improved after PRIMORG’s radio town hall meeting and follow up. The town hall was adjudged as the most successful because the feedback from residents is that over 80% of Pegi community are now metered. And the sharp practices by unscrupulous staff of AEDC all have now been taken care of,” Aderibigbe averred.
Asked how much a radio program like Public Conscience can go in pushing anti-corruption campaign and advocacy forward, the Deputy Director at Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Kolawole Oluwadare, said: “People should know enough to hold government to account, but unfortunately it looks like the war against corruption is not being owned because of perception”.
Similarly, the Lead director, Center for Social Justice, Eze Onyekpere said: “There are quite a number of programs but whatever success that must be made must be a product of some form of people coming together, attacking the challenges from all sides, and after some time people and definitely the program has made some progress in terms of bringing this disputes to the front line of national discourse but change does not happen in a day.”
The syndicated radio program is produced by PRIMORG with the support from the MACARTHUR FOUNDATION.
