By Emmanuel Elebeke

The Policy Innovation Centre (PIC) yesterday graduated 30 fellows from the Behavioral Insights Network, Transparency, and Accountability (BINTA) Fellowship in Abuja.

The BINTA Fellowship is a professional program designed to build the capacity of participants to lead systems-level change. Through rigorous training, mentorship, and implementation phases, the fellowship equips change-makers with innovative, evidence-based approaches to advance various sectors in the country.

The graduation ceremony celebrated the fellows’ achievements and highlighted the critical importance of anti-corruption and leadership in shaping better systems.

Speaking at the maiden graduation ceremony of the BINTA project, organized by PIC with support from the MacArthur Foundation, Dr. Osasuyi Dirisu commended the graduands on their successful completion of various anti-corruption projects, stating that it was a testament to their hard work and dedication.

She explained that BINTA fellowship was designed to strengthen the capacity of anti-corruption changemakers to leverage behavioral insights to disrupt the socially normative status of corruption in Nigeria.

“And the first cohort of this fellowship, 30 individuals drawn from various sectors, have worked tirelessly over the last few months to drive anti-corruption initiatives. After your induction and training, you went straight into the field, supporting initiatives and co-creating what we will be seeing today as templates for driving anti-corruption across a wide range of sectors.”

It’s so great to see all the fellows. I remember when we started this journey early this year and we were all in one room talking about drivers of corruption. You know, the very painstaking process involved in co-creating some of the fantastic work that you have done.

Some of you have done work around in the education sector, a committee engagement on corruption, the energy theft project and building collapse. The issues around really being able to drive change is when you feel so discouraged and overwhelmed.

“But having a group of people like you still come together and, you know, want to walk in your own little corner to make a difference. We are truly, truly inspired and we are happy about this opportunity for you to showcase the work you’ve done, which we would actually make a lot of noise about because one of the things that Behavioural Insights helps us to do is look for new ways and new thinking and new reflections to help us address corruption, you know, moving away from some of the traditional approaches for driving corruption.”

” So we’re really excited for the future. And we as the Policy Innovation Centre, we’re not relenting, we’re also going to continue to drive initiatives. And then we’re happy to, you know, move from you guys being fellows to collaborators and going into the future, you know, projects we are also already running in PIC.

“You don’t have to be perfect, you will keep improving and pushing through. But the insights are useful in ensuring that we’re driving a community, a large ecosystem of people who can really do very valuable work when it comes to issues relating to anti-corruption. But just to give a brief overview of how we got here, this project is called Harnessing Behavioural Insights to Counter Corruption.”

While expressing satisfaction with the performance of the graduands, Dirisu assured that PIC will do everything possible to institutionalize this fellowship on the long term.

“We are truly proud and honored to be celebrating these first 30 fellows and excited about them.”

In his remarks, the Chairman of Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Dr Abdullahi Bello called for a Public Private Partnership (PPP), to fight corruption in the country.

Bello said he was excited about the partnership between the CCB and private partners in the fight against corruption.

“I will like to extend my sincere appreciation to the MacArthur foundation for their support for this important initiative.

“Your continued investment in Nigeria’s future is invaluable and we are all deeply appreciative of your partnership and quest for a more transparent and accountable society.

“The event marks a significant milestone not only for the BINTA fellows but for the fight against corruption and promotion of ethical practice in both public and private sector of our great nation.

“It is my firm believe that the knowledge and insights by the BINTA fellows will make a significant impact on the way we approach governance and anti corruption initiatives in Nigeria,” he said.

While narrating her experience, one of the graduands of BINTA Fellowship and a public policy consultant, Dr Victor Ajieroh said the knowledge acquired would support. the ongoing efforts in addressing the challenge of corruption which slows development in Nigeria.

“Actually the Bita Fellow has equipped me with the motivation, with the skills to be able to identify issues, define the problem effectively, understand the causes design intervention tests, implement them and scale them in that way. We will begin to address the issue of corruption one effort at a time, one community at a time, one issue at a time so that’s actually the heart of this lecture.

On how long it will take to begin to see the impact in society, he said “We know it’s going to take a while and it will take individual and additional efforts towards being systematic about solving this problem.