By Dapo Akinrefon

The Akin Fadeyi Foundation and the Federal Road Safety Corps, with support from the MacArthur Foundation, have commenced a series of planned sensitization workshops across the FRSC training centres.

The first set of these anti-corruption training was launched at the FRSC Academy, Udi, Enugu State and the Marshal Inspectorate Training School, Owa-Alero in Delta State.

At both locations, over 500 cadets and trainees had the opportunity to engage with fundamental information on anti-corruption, accountability, and effective leadership as a crucial launching pad in their careers at the Corps.

In a statement by the Executive Director, AFF, Mr. Akin Fadeyi said the training also supports the organisation’s strategic agenda to deepen its work with the FRSC in a partnership that commenced in 2019 with the adoption of the FlagIt app by the Corps.

Fadeyi said: “The project is in line with the foundation’s behavioural change objectives aimed at an infusion of the core values of transparency and integrity driven service delivery in the newly recruited FRSC cadets and trainees.

“The collaborative goal of these series of training is to strengthen the internal capacity of FRSC officers to tackle micro-level and institutional corruption, promote accountability and ensure effective service delivery to road users. Information on the FlagIt app also featured prominently at the workshops as an effective deterrent to corruption and corrupt practices by public officers.”

In his address, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps – Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, delivered by SRC Abah Charity Ojoma, said: ‘Over the years, the leadership of the Corps has demonstrated zero tolerance for corruption in the system through rigorous policy formulation and implementation processes, dynamic and result oriented operational activities and above all, continuous monitoring, surveillance and evaluation procedures in line with the established processes, procedures and services.”

He also added that as a swift reaction to the outcry on corrupt tendencies by some officers and men of the Corps detailed on patrol operations on specific locations, the Corps Marshal approached the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC and Department of State Service, DSS, for collaboration on a joint surveillance special operation targeted at arresting bad eggs who make a mockery of the hard-earned reputation of the Corps before the general public. The surveillance operation yielded positive results as over 70 staff were arrested in two tactical swoops.

On his part, the Commandant at the Academy, Udi, Assistant Corps Marshal Kayode Olagungu, also used the opportunity to urge the newly recruited FRSC recruits to resist any form of temptation that could lead to corrupt behaviour that could harm the corporate integrity of the Corps. Standing on the Corps’ tripod of consultation, reward, and punishment, he reiterated that the Corps will not condone bribery and corruption from any of its personnel.

In addition, Mr. Ademola Adigun one of Africa’s leading oil and gas policy experts and an anti-corruption champion gave a lecture on advancing the Anticorruption, Accountability, and Effective Leadership Agenda – Practical Ways of Engineering Change.

Adigun told the recruits that the FRSC officials are the first and perhaps the only contact with the government many Nigerians will have, hence the needed change begins with them. He underscored that although eliminating corruption is hard, it can be reduced to the barest minimum by stopping the culture of silence.

The Akin Fadeyi Foundation also conducted a sensitization workshop exercise in Road Marshal Assistant Training School, Jos, Plateau State on the 14th of December. The Commandant at the training school, Jos, Mr Danasabe Lawal Shehu, fsi encouraged the trainees to practice self-discipline in the discharge of their duties. He reminded them that the gains that are made from bribes, are never enough and it was better not to start the habit.