Mambayya House, MacArthur Foundation engage CSOs, FBOs, CBOs to promote accountability, anti-corruption drive

By Salim Muhammad

The Aminu Kano Centre for Democratic Research and Training (AKCDRT), also known as Mambayya House has engaged multitudes of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) and Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) to broaden anti-corruption drive through behavioral change.

The Center also engaged students’, the media and other stakeholders in driving anticorruption and accountability campaigns through behavioral change among members of the society.

The Director of the Center, who is also in-charge of the project, Prof. Ismail Zango disclosed this at the 2nd biannual press conference of Mambayya House Anti-Corruption Project at the Center on Thursday.

According to Prof. Zango, the project supported by MacArthur Foundation is mobilising and educating citizens to actively partake in activities that will encourage social accountability and anticorruption for improved service delivery in local communities.

“We adopt three strategies – skill building, collaboration and gender equality and social inclusion to feature as pathways to achieve strategic goal of the project which was crafted by the Foundation as ‘Reduced Corruption through Nigerian-led efforts that strengthen accountability, transparency and participation within span of 10 to 15 years,” he said.

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He said through the project, the Center has trained over 40 CSOs, FBOs, CBOs, Youths and women groups to improve their operations with transparency and accountability.

Zango further noted that the project now supports 11 as against 7 anticorruption networks it started with which engaged 171 local Organisations across different communities in North West NIgeria.

He added that through media engagement and collaboration, over 38 million people were reached through radio programs in the region.

The Director enumerated some of the activities executed through their four sub grantees in Kano, Kaduna, Lagos and Enugu States including school based programs to encourage Anti-Corruption activities at the grassroots level.

“Our school-based programs to produce more young anti-corruption activists is gaining ascendancy because 11 additional students’ interfaith anti-corruption clubs were created by INAC-Kano in some selected secondary schools plus the existing 21 active ones in Bauchi, Benue, Kano and Niger States.

Earlier, the Project Manager, Prof Moses Aluaigba said that MacArthur chose the Center due to its transparency and accountability in a project funded by USAID in the past.

He said that the current project that targets to promote behaviour change of people to promote accountability and anti-corruption which was launched in 2021 will continue to 2024.

He hinted that the Center will be collaborating with some media Organisations, Nigerian Bar Association, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to come up with strategies that would help in tackling vote buying.