Stop the Bribe Campaign, an initiative launched by the CLEEN foundation in 2011 has forced many public officials especially law enforcement agents to eschew or extremely exercised caution when harassing citizens for bribe, The Complete News has gathered.
The project which is targeted at curbing low profile corruption among officials is ultimately driven through the use of mobile phones and the social media.
Findings by this medium revealed that not a few law enforcement agents thought twice before demanding a bribe.
This is unconnected with heightened public sensitization and seminars on how to deploy the ubiquitous mobile phone devices and social media networks in discreetly reporting these cases without being caught by a bribe-seeking officer.
In furtherance of its periodic public engagements, the CLEEN in February, 2014 in Lagos trained some selected market women, artisans and transporters on how to resist pressure from corrupt officials and how to use their mobile devices to report such cases.
On the choice of the participants, the leading rights body which has been championing access for justice crusade since 1997 said it decided to engaged the market women and artisans because they were the most harassed by corrupt officials.
Explaining how the campaign works, the body said the initiative is driven through the mobile phones and the social media. It added that the system shields the identities of the citizens reporting the corruption cases for security purposes.
“The theory of CLEEN Foundation is to use members of the public who are direct victims of public officials abuse of power (particularly law enforcement personnel) to harvest complaints. The complaints are submitted to the stopthebribes.net platform without personal contact with these institutions or even the CLEEN Foundation. These complaints can be made through SMS/MMS/call using any of our 24 hours hotlines (0806-002-3936, 0706-789-9368, 0903-520-0933, 32811 (shortcode number only accepts SMS/MMS in this format (For example: bribery, I paid bribe to officials of PHCN, Maitama, Abuja to enable me get Meter. Female, Abuja”, it explains.
The CLEEN said the initiative became imperative following a survey conducted by the National Crime and Safety which revealed that there were massive low level corruption cases among public officers despite the institutional control mechanisms in place.
“To address these anomalies and to nip it in the bud, the CLEEN Foundation in 2011 initiated a project (stopthebribes) to curb this ugly trend. The purpose of this project is to broaden the fight against low level corruption in Nigeria by using technology particularly social media platform and mobile phones which have become popular among the younger generation and low income populace in the country.
“The platform has a Corruption Incidence Tracking Room (CITR) at the Nigeria Police Force FIB headquarters. The CITR allows the police to track complaints as they are being reported unto the platform. The project has a Steering committee made up of selected senior personnel from various government agencies working collectively to resolve complaints on the platform by ensuring that erring personnel are disciplined in accordance with enabling laws and lay down policies of affected organization”, it said.
Assessing the impacts of the campaign, CLEEN confirmed the findings of this medium saying there had been reduction in the number of police personnel involve in low level corruption; Timely and regular reporting of incidences of bribery and corruption involving public functionaries in Nigeria, especially law enforcement officials by members of the public;
Popularization of use of technology such incident reporting and crowding sourcing platforms as tools for transparency, accountability and governance campaign in Nigeria and beyond.
Other include, overall increase in members of the public willing to report cases of police and other public officials low level bribery and extortion; Draw the attention of the authorities of the police to the growing advantage of utilising online medium in checkmating corruption at levels; Deterrent against rampant bribery and extortion by law enforcement officials on Nigerian roads and street corners and ultimately reduction of level of corruption by the police in Nigeria.
