By Adeola Raji
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Nigeria Police and other stakeholders on Monday set up a system to empower Nigerians to expose corrupt officials.
Mr Kolawole Banwo, Programme Manager, (CISLAC), said this at a one-day Stakeholders Consultation towards Establishment of Steering Committee for the Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre (ALAC) in Abuja.
He said: “CISLAC set up the Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre as a platform for citizens to report cases of corruption so that relevant institutions would address them.
“The role it will play is that it will empower citizens to speak up against corrupt practices, sometimes one of the ways to deter corruption is for the people to actually speak up against it.
“So ALAC educates people on their rights especially rights to social services and rights not to be exploited.
“This is because once they know those rights, they will be able to challenge it when somebody is doing it and then they will have a platform to report to.
“CISLAC will then escalate the cases by revealing them to the relevant institutions mandated to address such cases,” he said.
Banwo said that the stakeholders meeting was organised to discuss about the committee that would be set up for the effectiveness of the ALAC.
Also speaking, representative of the Nigeria Police, ACP Abayomi Shogunle, Head of Public Complaints Rapid Response Unit (PCRRU )said that the unit was established to effectively attend to Nigerians.
Shogunle said that the major aim was also to fight corruption in the Nigerian police force.
“When we say we are fighting corruption in the Nigeria police force, people doesn’t take us serious.
“The truth is we have the figures out there posted on the internet of cases of police officers that have been dismissed as a result of unacceptable corrupt practices.
“We have the data posted on our platform which shows that in the first two years we were able to recover N11.1 million bribe collected by police officers from members of the public,” he said.
Shogunle said that the money was returned to the rightful owners.
According to him, bail is free but due to ignorance on the part of the public and cases of some police officers abusing their office people pay.
He added that recently, the force had dismissed up to six police officers for collecting money for bail and urged Nigerians to report fraudulent officers.
He said the numbers are: 08057000001 08057000002, twitter handle is @PCRRU adding that “we need Nigerians to reach us so we can serve them better”.
Ms Bathsheba Tagwai, Legal Adviser, CISLAC, said that other stakeholders were “National Orientation Agency (NOA), National Human Rights Ommittion (NHRC) and Female lawyers.
Tagwai said others also include the EFCC ,the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, and legal aid council among others.
She said that a committee would be set up to help create synergy between ALAC and the relevant institutions to ease communication and make it more effective to help provide an improved feedback mechanism.
She said this would also help to improve resolutions of cases reported by using their good office to ensure that cases were effectively handled and give voice to the voiceless and also reduce corruption.