Nigeria and the practice of whistleblowing: how not to mobilize citizens’ participation in anti-corruption programme

Abstract

Relying on the Nigerian case, this study uses the principles of public par-ticipation theory to show how faulty anti-corruption designs and imple-mentation processes can exacerbate political corruption and breedineffective anti-corruption regulations. Applying an exploratory researchdesign and triangulating information from official sources and mainstreamliterature, the study reveals that the government’s attempt to implicitlyand explicitly implement whistleblowing regulations generated designlapses that prioritized monetary recovery above the need for public protec-tion while at the same time worsening the risk of retaliation against whis-tleblowers. The study reaffirms the need for effective mechanisms to beput in place to guarantee protection against potential risks of retaliationand to discourage self-interested tendencies among potential citizens’ par-ticipation. For example, the reward system inherent in explicit whistleblow-ing regulations can be redefined in non-monetary terms to makewhistleblowing less susceptible to abuses by self-serving individuals.