Communicating Corruption Without Normalising It
By Mariya Abubakar Bagudo
On August 13, 2026, a hall at the NICON Luxury Hotel in Abuja brought together people who have spent much of their professional lives shaping how Nigerians understand institutions, policies and public events.
It was the 6th National Spokespersons Awards and the 4th Economic Confidential Annual Lecture, a gathering of spokespersons, journalists, editors, communication professionals, policymakers and other stakeholders.
At the centre of the lecture was a subject Nigeria has discussed for decades, but perhaps not often enough from this perspective: the relationship between anti-corruption reforms, economic stability and effective communication.
The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, delivered the keynote lecture on the theme, “Anti-Corruption Reforms, Economic Stability and Effective Communication.”
What struck me was a simple but important proposition: fighting corruption is not only about investigating suspects, recovering stolen resources or prosecuting cases. It is also about what citizens are told, how they are told it and, perhaps most importantly, what they are left believing afterwards.
Communication is often treated as something that happens after the “real work” has been done.
An institution investigates. Government introduces a reform. An anti-corruption agency makes an arrest. Then, someone is expected to explain what happened to the public.
Aliyu’s argument challenged that sequence. Communication, in itself, is part of the work.
That distinction matters.
If citizens are expected to support reforms, they must first understand them. Beyond understanding, they must have sufficient confidence in the institutions behind those reforms to believe that their own participation can make a difference.
This is where the conversation about corruption becomes complicated.
For years, public discourse has understandably focused on how deeply corruption has penetrated our institutions and society. We hear about billions of naira lost, contracts abandoned, public resources diverted and officials accused of abusing their positions.
These stories matter. They should be investigated, reported and brought into public consciousness.
But there is a danger in repeatedly telling a society that corruption is everywhere without equally reminding people that corruption is not inevitable.
When citizens constantly hear that everybody steals, everybody cuts corners and nothing ever changes, the unintended message can become more powerful than the original corruption story.
It can create resignation.
A person who becomes convinced that corruption is simply “how things work” may eventually ask why they should be the exception. If everybody is supposedly corrupt, why remain honest?
That was one of the more striking lessons I took from Aliyu’s presentation: exposing the scale of corruption must not become a way of normalising it.
This does not mean hiding the truth or making Nigeria’s corruption problem appear smaller than it is. Quite the opposite.
It means telling the truth in a way that leaves room for responsibility, possibility and action.
Citizens need to know what has gone wrong, but they also need to know what can be done about it, what institutions are doing differently and where accountability has actually produced results.
Otherwise, anti-corruption communication risks creating cynicism instead of encouraging action.
Aliyu also spoke about the importance of communicating corruption in ways people can recognise in their everyday lives.
Broad messages about the evils of corruption may create awareness, but communication becomes more meaningful when citizens understand how corruption affects the school their children attend, the hospital they visit, the road they travel on or the public service they depend upon.
A diverted million naira is not merely a figure in an audit report. It may represent medicines that never reached a hospital, desks that never arrived at a school or repairs that were never made to a community road.
Giving corruption this human dimension makes accountability easier to understand.
There is also something powerful about reminding people that rejecting corruption is not an unusual position.
The narrative that dishonesty is somehow an accepted Nigerian culture deserves to be challenged. Highlighting citizens and public officials who demonstrate integrity can help reinforce the idea that honesty and accountability remain normal values worth defending.
The media has an important responsibility in that process.
Aliyu acknowledged the contribution of investigative journalism in exposing corruption and pushing institutions towards reform. But he also reminded journalists of something that should never become negotiable: credibility.
In an environment where information often travels faster than verification, the temptation to sensationalise can be strong.
Yet every careless headline, exaggerated allegation or poorly sourced report takes something away from public trust in the media.
Journalists do not strengthen accountability simply by making the loudest accusation. They strengthen it when citizens can trust that what they report has been independently verified and fairly presented.
The same responsibility applies to spokespersons.
Their job should not simply be to defend institutions or make uncomfortable realities sound better. Spokespersons are bridges between institutions and the people those institutions serve.
That position carries a responsibility to communicate truthfully, including when the truth is uncomfortable.
A spokesperson who sacrifices credibility to protect an institution temporarily may ultimately damage the institution’s reputation more seriously.
Aliyu illustrated the scale of the challenge with figures from the ICPC’s enforcement and prevention activities.
Between 2023 and June 2026, according to his presentation, the Commission’s Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative monitored 4,582 public projects valued at more than ₦22.53 trillion. Projects worth ₦507.04 billion were reportedly returned to construction sites, while estimated savings to government stood at ₦385.62 billion.
He also referenced court-ordered forfeitures involving funds and properties connected to corruption investigations.
Whatever claims anti-corruption institutions make about their performance, this emphasis on measurable evidence is important.
The public should not merely be told that corruption is being fought. Citizens should be able to see the investigations, prosecutions, recoveries, reforms and preventive measures that justify that claim.
Communication without evidence eventually becomes rhetoric.
Perhaps the most important lesson I took from the lecture is that those who communicate public affairs are not neutral observers of public perception. We help shape it.
Every story about corruption leaves an impression. Every statistic communicates something beyond the number itself. Every headline can strengthen citizens’ belief that institutions are capable of working or deepen the conviction that they never will.
This is why the fight against corruption cannot be separated from the responsibility to communicate honestly.
Nigeria does not need a prettier version of its problems. It needs the truth.
But it also needs a way of hearing that truth without becoming numb to it.
The purpose of telling Nigerians that corruption exists should never be to convince them that corruption is unavoidable. It should be to demonstrate why corruption must be resisted and how citizens and institutions can participate in resisting it.
That, perhaps, is where effective anti-corruption communication carries its greatest responsibility: telling the truth honestly enough to be believed, but constructively enough to inspire action rather than despair.
Because exposing corruption should never make us comfortable with its existence.
It should make us more determined to end it.
Mariya Abubakar Bagudo is a PRNigeria Fellow and can be reached at [email protected]