Accountability Lab honours 5 civil servants with integrity awards

Accountability Lab Nigeria, a civil society organisation (CSO), has honoured five civil servants from across the country with awards for standing against corruption and upholding accountability in public service.

The Integrity Icon summit and award was organised by Accountability Lab Nigeria in partnership with Luminate, MacArthur and Ford Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) “to name and fame honest government officials”.

The recipients of the 2023 integrity icon award were Catherine Ogunjebi, head of legal services at the Ondo state contributory health commission; Lois Akut, head of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) at Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital Kaduna; Samuel Ogundare, head of civil engineering department at Ekiti state bureau of public procurement; Wodi Seiyefa, dean of Bayesla state school of nursing and midwifery and Nkwuda Ogechukwu, a teacher at the community secondary school in Nduruku Amagu in Abakaliki LGA of Ebonyi state.

Speaking at the event, Odeh Friday, country director of Accountability Lab Nigeria, said the recipients of the awards were chosen for upholding accountability in their places of work.

“So, basically for civil servants working across MDAs across the country, they are the ones whom we have identified today to name and fame,” Friday said.

“Five of them are from over 2,500 nominations that we have received nationwide.”

Also speaking at the event, Ehi Idakwo, Accountability Lab Nigeria programs and learning manager, said the awardees were honoured for standing firm on the path of truth and honesty.

“These are not distant heroes, they are ordinary people doing extraordinary things, choosing principle over profit, truth over convenience,” she said.

“Accountability Lab Nigeria believes in the power of social learning.

“We believe that by witnessing integrity, by seeing ourselves reflected in the stories of our icons, we can collectively shift norms and behaviours.”