•Five public servants clinch Accountability Lab’s 2025 Integrity Icon Award
Stakeholders in governance, civil society and public service reform have urged the Federal Government to urgently strengthen systems that reward integrity and performance in the civil service, as recognition and incentives, not fear and punishment are critical to rebuilding trust and improving service delivery.
The call was made in Abuja at the 2025 Integrity Icon summit and awards organised by Accountability Lab Nigeria, where five public servants from across security, education, statistics, audit and law enforcement institutions were honoured for ethical leadership and measurable impact under pressure.
Delivering the welcome address, Executive Director of Accountability Lab Nigeria, Odeh Friday, said the country’s accountability crisis was not rooted in the absence of laws or institutions, but in the failure to recognise and support ethical leadership.
“What we choose to celebrate in our society defines who we are and what our public institutions become,” he said. “When integrity is ignored, ethical public servants are isolated. When integrity is named and famed, it becomes the standard.”
Odeh explained that the programme, implemented in partnership with the Bureau of Public Service Reforms and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, deliberately shifts accountability away from fear and punishment toward incentives and positive norms.
According to him, the initiative identifies public servants whose choices under pressure have produced tangible outcomes for citizens and amplifies their stories to reset expectations across institutions.
“Integrity is treated as performance, not personality. When integrity is visible, it shifts incentives, influences peers and builds trust. That is how governance works for people,” he said.
In her keynote address titled Recognition and Rewards: A Pathway to a Performance-Driven, Accountable Civil Service that Delivers Efficient, Citizen-Centric Results in Nigeria, retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Ibifuro-Harrison Hilda, warned that Nigeria faces a deep crisis of trust driven by systemic weaknesses, under-recognition of excellence and persistent governance failures. She cited recent governance and perception surveys showing widespread public distrust of state institutions and argued that decades of reform efforts have faltered because ethical behaviour is rarely rewarded.
“Inside this system are women and men whose efforts go unseen,” she said. “The civil service has never lacked responsible public servants; it has only lacked a culture of celebrating them. When exceptional work goes unnoticed, morale erodes and integrity becomes a lonely choice.”
Hilda stressed that evidence from global and local studies shows recognition, particularly non-monetary recognition significantly improves motivation, retention and performance. She noted that when rewards are tied to measurable outcomes such as service delivery, transparency and citizen satisfaction, accountability becomes real rather than rhetorical. “You cannot demand performance when you do not value performers, and you cannot expect excellence when excellence goes unnoticed,” she added.
The summit also heard that digitisation of public processes, fair appraisal systems and strong whistleblower protections are essential complements to recognition, as they reduce discretion, lower the personal cost of honesty and make ethical conduct professionally viable within government.
Speaking in a goodwill message, Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr Dasuki Ibrahim Arabi, described the Integrity Icon campaign as one of Nigeria’s most credible citizen-centred accountability platforms. He said the initiative demonstrates that integrity is not merely a moral expectation but “a governance imperative” at a time when public confidence in institutions is strained.
“For us at BPSR, integrity is central to our mandate to make government effective, efficient and citizen-centred,” Arabi said, reaffirming the Bureau’s commitment to reforms that institutionalise meritocracy, reduce discretion and reward exemplary public service behaviour across ministries, departments and agencies. He congratulated the awardees for choosing “the difficult yet honourable path” and noted that their recognition was a public affirmation that character and conduct matter to Nigeria’s future.
Five public servants emerged winners of the 2025 Accountability Lab Integrity Icon Award after a citizen-nomination and verification process. They are CSP Mathias Nuhu of the Akwa Ibom Police Command’s Safer Highway Patrol, Mrs Oluwashola Shobayo of the Lagos State Office of Internal Audit, Mr Kumafan Dzaan of the Benue State Bureau of Statistics, Mrs Ann Ejuile Itodo of Government Senior Secondary School Apo in Abuja, and Col. I. A. Manga of the Nigerian Army in the Federal Capital Territory.
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
