The fight against corruption in Nigeria will be won or lost on the desks of civil servants, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), has said.

At the end of a five-day sensitisation and capacity building workshop for its Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit, organized in partnership with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Friday in Lafia, the commission said civil servants remained the gatekeepers of public resources and must lead the anti-graft crusade.

Chairman of the commission, Dr. Mohammed Bello Shehu, represented by the federal commissioner representing Kwara State, Mr. Ismaila Muhammed Agaka, told participants that the battle was in the daily official choices.

“The fight against corruption begins with the choices that we make each day,” Shehu said, “The true value of this programme will be measured by how faithfully we apply the knowledge gained. I therefore charge you to uphold integrity, accountability, transparency and due process in all official duties.”

He said the sensitisation was deliberate. “It is to sensitize our staff on the evil and ills of corruption and to prepare them to work with a sense of duty, sense of responsibility, accountability, transparency, and to treat public resources with due respect so that the overall nation can benefit maximally.”

According to him, civil servants must return to their posts not just as workers, but as ambassadors.

“Let us return to our duty posts as ambassadors of integrity, determined to protect public resources, strengthen public trust and support the commission in discharging its constitutional mandate with honour.

“Our country is where it is today because of the way we have handled public resources,” he warned.

The federal commissioner representing Nasarawa State, Mr. Aliyu Abdulkadir Al-Makura, said the character of a civil servant is judged both inside and outside the office, and under the present administration, there is no hiding place for misconduct.

“The government of His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, has zero tolerance, not only for corruption, but any kind of misdemeanor. We have all had the chairman’s speech. It is my expectation that we would not only internalize the message, but put it into practice in our official work at the workplace, and even outside of the workplace, because your conduct, even outside of the office to a large extent, says so much about who you are,” Al-Makura said.

In their responses participants admitted that the civil service is where leakages happen and where they must be blocked.

Mr. Kabir Al-Hassan Shuaibu, Fiscal Efficiency Department, RMAFC Headquarters, said the training was a reminder of the civil servant’s civic duty to the nation.

“The training has been very engaging, and participants have learned a lot regarding their civic responsibilities as Nigerians. Participants were reminded of their basic task to help move the country forward by tackling corruption, which has been a bane to the nation,” he said.