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Title Forging ahead as an anti-corruption agency: the case of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in Nigeria (2000' 2017)
Full text https://hdl.handle.net/1842/38457; http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/1721
Date 2021
Author(s) Oni, Emmanuel Oluwole
Contributor(s) Munoz Martin, Jose; Anders, Gerhard
Abstract This thesis investigates how the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in Nigeria has carved a niche for its operations, to forge ahead within the Nigeria's anti-corruption landscape, despite the formidable challenges and stiff institutional competition it has been facing from other anti-corruption bodies, especially from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). It discusses the evolution of the ICPC's operations between the years 2000 and 2017 to account for the shift towards corruption-prevention programmes that have come to define the Commission's operational strategies and priorities. First, the thesis sketches the politics and history of anti-corruption campaigns to flesh out the factors that have been shaping the current field of anti-corruption agencies in Nigeria. Moreover, the study reviews the literature on bureaucratic autonomy to gain insights into the theoretical basis for the empirical analyses. The study employs participant-observation and semi-structured interviews to investigate several corruption-prevention operations of the Commission that are characterised by the outsourcing of the ICPC's functions to civil-society organisations and other government officials. It focuses on the everyday experiences of ICPC staff and the members of civil-society organisations and other government agencies that the ICPC employs to pursue its strategy of corruption prevention. These include a one-day seminar organised by an NGO-partner of the ICPC under the National Anti-Corruption Coalition, the operations of the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Units within ministerial departments and other public entities as well as the youth advocacy programmes organised by the ICPC. Still within the scope of the expansive corruption-prevention work of the Commission, the thesis analyses the activities of the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, established by the ICPC to drive its knowledge-based corruption prevention operations in the country. The findings suggest that the Commission, relying on the latitude of its bureaucratic autonomy, has been able to carve out a niche for itself in the sphere of corruption-prevention programmes. To achieve this, the ICPC staff rely on external agents in civil society and government. This has had some adverse effects on the ICPC's autonomy and the implementation of its policies. First, some of the non-state actors working with the Commission have been found either misrepresenting the Commission's core message or abusing the powers delegated to them. The thesis presents evidence that the Commission's corruption-prevention work has expanded beyond its current supervisory or monitoring capabilities and that the non-enforcement operational areas of focus by the Commission are carefully chosen to avoid the political turmoil that tends to surround enforcement activities. Therefore, there is need for the expansion of ICPC staff strength, specialisation and geographical spread across the country to enhance its institutional supervisory capacity necessary for the realisation of its corruption-prevention operational objectives, while remaining alert to the political sensitivity of their tasks.
Subject(s) Anti-Corruption Campaigns; Institutional Competition; Corruption-prevention; Bureaucratic Autonomy
Language en
Publisher The University of Edinburgh
Type of publication Thesis or Dissertation; Doctoral; PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Format application/pdf
Repository Edinburgh - University of Edinburgh
Added to C-A: 2022-01-24;09:41:07