The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday said the agency is looking to partner with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to engage school children across the country in its crusade against corrupt practices.  

The Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, while receiving the UBEC representative at the corporate headquarters of the EFCC in Abuja,   said the initiative will support selected schools with N1million per school to execute self- help projects that would impact considerably in their various environments.

“The youth are a veritable ally in the anti-corruption crusade and must be taken along right from their early stages. Thus we have taken steps to involve them in the fight through various programmes that have been initiated by the Commission, one of which is the establishment of integrity groups across schools”, Mr. Lamorde said.

While congratulating the benefitting schools the EFCC boss added that the primary role of these clubs is to build future leaders with integrity, honesty, patriotism, and high moral values as a basis for social change in Nigeria.
 
The representative of UBEC and Director, Social Mobilisation in the Commission, Ibrahim Sulaiman, informed the EFCC that the self- help project is a World Bank- funded initiative that began in 2002 and which has so far intervened in over 20,000 schools across the Federation; empowering them directly with the funds to execute projects that have direct bearing on the lives of their students.

The Director further said that the N1million given to the schools would encourage the communities where these schools are located to own the projects, since only schools with broad -based management committees, which involve the community, benefit from the scheme.  

In his remarks, the Commission’s Secretary, Emmanuel Akomaye, re-echoed the significance of the event to underscore the importance of children in the totality of any country’s national life.

The eleven schools that have benefitted so far  from the N1 Million scheme are: Model Highway School, Calabar, Cross River;  Edo College, Benin City, Edo;  Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure, Ondo ; Community Secondary School, Wadata,  Benue;  Government Secondary School Akwanga,  Nassarawa; Government Junior Secondary School Kurmin Mashi , Kaduna ; Government Girls Secondary School,  Wammako,  Sokoto; Model Secondary School,  Donga, Taraba; Government Technical College, Abakaliki, Ebonyi;  Queen’s School 1, Enugu; and Mashafa Community School, Abuja.