Rector of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron, Commodore Duja Effedua, Rtd, has faulted the listing of the Academy as a High Corruption Risk (HCR) Agency by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, for allegedly failing to respond to its Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS) questionnaire.
Effedua, who was reacting to reports of the ICPC listing said that MAN responded to the EICS, adding that the classification is incorrect as there was no study conducted by the Agency to conclude on the Academy. He further noted that the news report and publicity afforded by the ranking is injurious to the integrity and image of MAN.
The Rector expressed dismay that the rating is capable of de-marketing the Academy and eroding gains it has so far made in the global maritime arena in the past five years, in addition to hurting ongoing partnerships in the area of capacity building, technical support and marketability with foreign MTIs.
Although, news report listed 51 other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) indicted by the ICPC ranking, MAN Rector said the inclusion of Academy in the HCR ranking is suspicious. He explained that he responded to the EICS to the commission via the Email provided by the ICPC on July 2, 2021 and again on January 9, 2022 with even a hard copy addressed to the same Mr A Udofia, the director in charge of the ranking.
He however promised to get across to the ICPC Chairman to lodge a formal complaint, to enable the agency’s leadership to investigate what he termed biases of some of its staff in the handling of the affairs of MAN in recent time.
Effedua explained that on March 12, 2021, the Academy received a similar request, which it expeditiously responded to through the ICPC’s email as specifically directed.
According to him, “after some months, they wrote again to say they didn’t get our reply, and we stated that we did and went further to show proof of delivery as our evidence. Is the Academy to be held liable for operational gaps within the responsible departments?
The Rector agonised that the news report ranking of MAN as a high-risk institution in terms of corrupt tendencies is wholly injurious to his person and office, and much more to the nation and its citizenry, asking the ICPC’s leadership to look into the matter.
‘If the Study System & Review Department of our revered ICPC is saying they conducted a research to arrive at its unfair assessment and ranking, where and how did they do this without visiting the Academy?” he queried.
