By Ifeoma Ezenyilimba
As part of the activities to mark the 2025 Annual International Anti-Corruption Day (IACD) Commemoration, the Anambra State Anti-Corruption Strategy (ANSACS), in partnership with her sister anti-corruption implementation bodies – the State Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)/Media Accountability and Anti-Corruption Initiative (CMAAI) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), with support from the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) Program, on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 took anti-corruption sensitisation campaigns to some selected schools in Anambra State, during which they conscientised the students and the staff of the institutions on dangers of corrupt practices.
The anti-corruption implementation bodies in line with the theme of the 2025 IACD of “Uniting With Youths Against Corruption: Shaping Tomorrow’s Integrity”, at the sensitisation exercise, urged the students and their teachers to say
no to corruption, and say yes to integrity and accountability in all their endeavours in life, saying that integrity pays.
Among the schools visited included Nnamdi Azikiwe Secondary School, Abagana, Njikoka LGA; State Model Secondary School, Iyiagu, Awka, Awka South and Anambra State Polytechnic, Mgbakwu, all in Anambra State.
Addressing the students at Nnamdi Azikiwe Secondary School, Abagana and at State Model Secondary School, Iyiagu, Awka, Mr Inalegwu Shaibu of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Anambra State, charged them to be ambassadors of integrity by doing the right thing always, even when no one was watching.
Mr Shaibu, who shed light on benefits of integrity which he identified as trust and credibility, positive self image and better opportunities to thrive, among others, equally charged the students to embrace hard work and discipline so as to excel in life.
The ICPC Officer, who cited late Prof Dora Nkem Akunyili, a former Director General of NAFDAC and a former Nigerian Minister of Information, as an example of someone who had integrity, charged the students to strive to be honest always.
Adding her voice to the sensitisation, The Anambra State Coordinator of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)/Media Accountability and Anti-Corruption Initiative (CMAAI), Mrs Ugochi Freeman, enjoined the students and the teachers to avoid corruption, saying that corruption is a menace which destroys both an individual and the society.
Pointing out that upholding integrity, which she descriped as being honest transparent and doing the right thing, would help one to eschew corruption, Mrs Freeman cautioned the students against getting involved in corrupt practices.
She identified lateness to school on the part of both students and teachers, stealing, truancy, cultism, bullying of any sort, teachers doing something else when they were supposed to teach the students, cheating and a child taking what he/she was given to give to another person, among others as some corrupt practices.
Mrs Freeman, who is also the Executive Director of Creative Minds Centre for Youths and Community Development, also advised the students against engaging in sexual abuse and defilement of any sort, drug abuse and keeping bad companies.
Citing example of a 13 year old JS 3 boy student, who sneaked into the girls’ hostel at 1 am in the night to defile a SS3 student, and was punished, because the girl reported, the CMAAI Coordinator, urged the students to always open up and report all cases of sexual abuse and corrupt practices they witnessed to their parents and the relevant authorities.
For her part, the Secretary of Anambra State Anti-Corruption Strategy (ANSACS) Secretariat, Lilian Oguchi, Esq, called on the students to say no to corrupt practices such as noise making in the classroom; disobedience to parents, teachers and constituted authorities; lies; enrolling students into miracle centres for external examination as well as keeping of themselves and their surroundings dirty. She advised teachers to stop sale of items and doing other works in schools when they were supposed to teach the students, saying that such were gross corrupt practices.
Also speaking, a member of the ANSACS Secretariat, Barr Roseline Okeke, described corruption as abuse of trusted power for private gains. She called on the youths to fight corruption from within themselves by the class monitors saying no to favouring their friends who made noise in the classroom.
Barr Okeke, observed that occasions where class monitors did not write names of their friends who made noise in the classroom in the register, so that the friend would give them gifts during break time, were also corrupt practices. This was even as she advised the youths against engaging in other corrupt practices such as Yahoo Fraud and money laundering.
The students and their teachers were presented with items for refreshments by the groups.
Goodness Media reports that the sponsor of the event, Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) Program, is being funded by the European Union, and implemented by the International IDEA.
