AN ASSESSMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF I.C.P.C IN AGUATA L.G.A OF ANAMBRA STATE

ABSTRACT

The work was one done on the assessment of secondary school students’ perception of the roles and functions of I.C.P.C in aguata L.G.A of Anambra state. The idea was to ascertain the student’s knowledge about the roles and functions of ICPC as an anti-corruption agency in Nigeria amidst the famous EFCC. A simple random sampling technique was adopted to select those students from all the 20 wards in aguata L.G.A it was done on such a way that a secondary school was picked out from each ward and as such five students and a teacher were selected from each school. The students at the end of the study recorded their responses on the awareness of the existence of ICPC and their perceptions about its roles and functions are an anti-corruption agency. The teachers that were thus selected gave their responses as a back-up evidence for their students’ awareness and perception of the roles and functions of ICPC in aguata L.G.A.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Nigeria, like many other African countries, has been bedeviled by corruption especially in her public life. This singular act has made Nigeria to loose its relevance in the comity of Nations and has such has weighted down its developmental pace as investors hardly invest in such economy. As we all know, corruption is a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of our society at all levels. It has caused decay and dereliction within the institution of government and the society in physical, social and human terms corruption has been responsible for the instability of successive governments since the first republic. every coup d’etat since then has been in the name of stamping out the disease called corruption. Unfortunately, the cure often turned out to be worse than the disease, and Nigeria has been worse for it. Nigeria’ s external image took a serious bashing as our believed country began to feature on top of every corruption index. The government of fourth republic, Nigeria under the leadership of Olusegun Obsanjo, in its effort to strengthening the rule of law and taking significant steps to bringing about a material decrease in official corruption, as Obsanjo (2000), rightly observed that “with corruption, there can be no sustainable development, nor political stability, by breeding and feeding an inefficiency, corruption invariably strangles the system of social organization, in fact, corruption is literally the anti-thesis of development and progress”.

Therefore came up with a number of policy initiatives to combat corruption. The main measure of such policy initiative is the creation of a new independent anti-corruption commission which will have jurisdiction over the investigation and prosecution of all forms of oicial corruption, including the recovering of misappropriated public funds whether held domestically or abroad. In line with this, on Tuesday June 13, 2000, the corrupt practices and other related oences act otherwise known as anti-corruption act was signed into law and as such independent corrupt practices and other related oences commission (ICPC) was established. “Independent corrupt practices and other related oences commission (ICPC) is the apex body saddled by law with the responsibility of fighting corruption and other related oences in Nigeria which ought to employ all available legal means to rid Nigeria of all forms of corruption and thus promote transparency, probity, accountability and integrity in the public and private life”. It is therefore, expected of ICPC to be the foremost agent of change in the war against corruption and other related oences in the polity and thereby restore Nigeria to the enviable status of honour within the comity of Nations.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

In Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State in particular and in Nigeria in general, the presence of ICPC is hardly felt by secondary school students and the public in general. Many students hardly know the roles and functions of ICPC not to talk of knowing how effective or otherwise they have performed. This is caused either by incompetence in the part of the commission or public unawareness of such commission being in existence. It is against these problems that this study will be carried out.