AN ASSESSMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS

AN ASSESSMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS
 
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Nigeria, like many other African countries, has been bedeviled by corruption especially in her public life. This singular act has made Nigeria to loose its relevance in the comity of Nations and has such has weighted down its developmental pace as investors hardly invest in such economy. As we all know, corruption is a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of our society at all levels. It has caused decay and dereliction within the institution of government and the society in physical, social and human terms corruption has been responsible for the instability of successive governments since the first republic. every coup d’etat since then has been in the name of stamping out the disease called corruption. Unfortunately, the cure often turned out to be worse than the disease, and Nigeria has been worse for it. Nigeria’ s external image took a serious bashing as our believed country began to feature on top of every corruption index.
The government of fourth republic, Nigeria under the leadership of Olusegun Obsanjo, in its effort to strengthening the rule of law and taking significant steps to bringing about a material decrease in official corruption, as Obsanjo (2000), rightly observed that “with corruption, ther can be no sustainable development, nor political stability, by breeding and feeding an inefficiency, corruption invariably strangles the system of social organization, in fact, corruption is literally the anti-thesis of development and progress”. Therefore came up with a number of policy initiatives to combat corruption. The main measure of such policy initiative is the creation of a new independent anti-corruption commission which will have jurisdiction over the investigation and prosecution of all forms of official corruption, including the recovering of misappropriated public funds whether held domestically or abroad.
In line with this, on Tuesday June 13, 2000, the corrupt practices and other related offences act otherwise known as anti-corruption act was signed into law and as such independent corrupt practices and other related offences commission (ICPC) was established.
“Independent corrupt practices and other related offences commission (ICPC) is the apex body saddled by law with the responsibility of fighting corruption and other related offences in Nigeria which ought to employ all available legal means to rid Nigeria of all forms of corruption and thus promote transparency, probity, accountability and integrity in the public and private life”.
It is therefore, expected of ICPC to be the foremost agent of change in the war against corruption and other related offences in the polity and thereby restore Nigeria to the enviable status of honour within the comity of Nations.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
In Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State in particular and in Nigeria in general, the presence of ICPC is hardly felt by secondary school students and the public in general. Many students hardly know the roles and functions of ICPC not to talk of knowing how effective or otherwise they have performed. This is caused either by incompetence in the part of the commission or public unawareness of such commission being in existence.
It is against these problems that this study will be carried out.
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The main purpose of carrying out this study are as follow:
To examine the roles of independent corrupt practices and other related offences commission (ICPC) on eradication of corruption in Nigeria
To examine the effects of the roles and functions of ICPC on the rate of corruption in Nigeria.
To assess the perception of the public especially secondary school students of the roles and functions of ICPC.
To find out factors hindering the success of ICPC in eradicating corruption in Nigeria as well as assess its relevance in contemporary politics of Nigeria.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Do students have knowledge of the roles and functions of ICPC?
Does the roles and function of ICPC related to curbing corruption?
Does the rate of corruption in Nigeria has effect on the functions of ICPC?
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This research is meant to ascertain the perception of students towards the roles and functions of the independent corrupt practices and other related offence commission (ICPC)
It is also important to state that research covers only Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This study will facilitate a better and genuine understanding of how ICPC as a commission set up by the government to identify, convict and probe the corrupt officers in the country has fared.
It will assess the level of perception of how ICPC has performed by the public especially secondary school students.
It will also show how corruption can be checked, controlled and eradicated in a country like Nigeria.
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Students unawareness of the commission: Most students are not knowledgeable of the existence of such commission due to the fact that it is relatively far from the people.  It is important to not that ICPC has only eleven offices across the nation.
Limited resource : Due to the delicate nature of the job performed by the commission, access to vital information from the commission is hardly secured again, money needed to secure relevant research materials and vital information needed were in short supply.
Low level of experience of the researcher: The generalizability of findings may be affected by the inexperience of the researcher to the researcher to handle technical areas of the research work that requires high-level skillfulness and competence.
DEFINITION OF TERMS:
The following terms are defined as they are used in this study
The commission: This is refers to as the independent corrupt practices and other related offences commission (ICPC)
The Act: This is refers to as the anti-corruption act 2000, which establishes the ICPC.