Founding chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has bagged a lifetime/outstanding award for his anticorruption work.
The award, which is administered by Doha, Qatar-based think tank, Rule of Law and Anticorruption Centre (ROLACC), celebrates corruption fighters, academics and campaigners from around the world.
The award ceremony held on Friday at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Malaysia.
Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Al Thani, attended the ceremony.
Sheikh Al Thani instituted the award in support of support of the United Nation’s anticorruption drive.
The award is in four categories, with joint winners in each category. Each category of the award comes with a cash prize of $250,000.
Ribadu jointly won the lifetime/outstanding achievement category alongside Leonard McCarthy, a former Vice President of Institutional Integrity at the World Bank Group.
The honorees were presented with a plague and certificate each by the two leaders.
Mr. Ribadu was nominated for the award by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), a civil society organization doing pioneering work on the whistleblowing policy in Nigeria.
His winning followed approval by ROLACC’s High-Level Selection Committee and the board.
In his short acceptance speech, Ribadu described the award as an acknowledgement of persons around the world working to curb corruption.
He paid tribute to his colleagues at the EFCC, some of whom paid the supreme price in their line of duty.
He said the award will boost the morale of corruption fighters who would come to realise that their job is not unappreciated, after all.
Those who were honoured alongside the former EFCC chairman include Cambridge University don, Prof Jason Sharman, Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey of Oxford University, who won the academic excellence category.
Accountability Lab and Ms. Fernanda Angelica Flores Aguirre from Mexico jointly won the Youth Creativity and Engagement Award.
The award for innovation was conferred jointly on PNG Phones Against Corruption, an initiative from Papua New Guinea on reporting corruption, and Dr Roger Oppong Koranteng, a Ghanaian national who heads the Public Sector Governance unit at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.
