Anti-corruption Confidential Reporting: where are Nigeria’s Whistleblowers?
Keywords:
Whistleblowing, Confidential Reporting, Corruption, Whistleblower protection, Public InterestAbstract
For nine years now (2016-2025) Nigeria has operated a whistleblowing policy in its unending fight against corruption. The policy was celebrated by the citizens at the outset as they consentingly participated in the nation’s bid to redeem itself from endemic corruption and successes were recorded. However, having of late observed significant lull in whistleblowing in the nation, this paper is driven by the objective to identify the hurdles against the act of whistleblowing with intent on proffering pathways towards sustaining the policy for the good of the nation. It is founded on the Utilitarian Ethical Theory as it sees whistleblowing as actions taken in public interest. Deploying the desk research methodology, the paper discovers that whistleblowing continues though in a relatively very low ebb in the nation as evidenced in the FCTA land misallocation disclosure in 2025 inter alia. The paper highlights instances of whistleblowers’ persecution to drive home repercussions citizens suffer on acts of patriotism. It identifies lack of decisiveness in government’s handling of revealed cases, an overriding sense of betrayal in whistleblowers’ continued exposure to retribution and the nation’s opaque information management system in the face of the FOI Law, as the bane of whistleblowing in Nigeria. The paper strongly recommends among others, the immediate enactment of a standalone whistleblower law and unfettered application of the tenets of the Freedom of Information Law as veritable means of sustaining whistleblowing in the nation to maximize its benefits.
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