Social Media in Fighting Corruption

U.S Speaker on anti-corruption, Mr. Peter Ainsworth, spent a few hours at the American Corner in Abuja yesterday with a small group of civil society members active in social media to discuss how it can be used to fight corruption. There was a live tweet component of the program that allowed the outside audience to join in the conversation and ask questions.

The Fight Continues

Today is the second day of the U.S. Embassy hosted program on anti-corruption.  The Speaker, Peter Ainsworth, who is Senior Deputy Chief for Litigation - Public Integrity Section, Criminal Division in the Department of Justice, was at the Nigerian Law School, Abuja.  There he interacted with members of the faculty lead by Head of Academics, Bob Osamor.

Just as in his interaction with civil society, Mr. Ainsworth emphasized that fighting corruption is a continuous process and hope must never be lost.   He said, although systems and approaches in the U.S. and Nigeria may differ, the goal is still the same and that is to successfully enforce anti-corruption laws as deterrence for future behavior.  As simple as this goal seems, achieving it is not simple at all and the U.S., after working on this for two hundred years still makes mistakes.

Fighting Corruption

Corruption is a serious problem and its impact is evident in poor democratic growth, weak economies and ultimately general insecurity.  It is the root of many evils and must be addressed for any country to progress.  It is also an international issue and no country is immune, however it can also be controlled as we’ve seen from many countries.  The United Nations designated December 9 as International Anti-corruption day to focus the world’s attention to it.  In commemoration of this day we asked some of our friends in the media to share with us briefly what they think can be done to fight corruption in Nigeria.