In an effort to compliment the Federal Government’s war against corruption, a kano Based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Centre for Information Technology (CITAD), has initiated two competitions; “Report a Project and Innovative Ideas” to engage the youths in the on-going fight against corruption.

The program Officer anti-corruption and accountability project of the Centre, Maryam Ado Haruna made this known on Tuesday in Kano.

According to her, The report a project, is a competition that invites applications from students in tertiary institutions to write on abandoned projects in their various communities with the aim to expose cases of abandoned projects that have positive impact on the lives of the people either as a result of fund diversion or change of government.

The Innovative Ideas, according to Haruna, is a competition where students of higher learning institutions write essays on how best to fight corruption and the best writer stands to win a token price of N30.000, while the second runner-up gets the sum of N20.000 and the 3rd winner gets N10.000.

She said the aim of the program, is to engage the youths in critical thinking and innovative ideas which at the end, will lead them to asking questions and holding those in public offices accountable.

“ We introduced the programs to engage our youths in the fight against corruption by engaging in critical thinking to begin to demand for answers from those in authority.

The youths whom are the majority in the country have a significant role to play in the fight against corruption.

It’s only when the youths begin to use the media to expose such cases that those representing them in government would sit up and perform their duties according to the law”.

Maryam, however, decried the low participation of students in the programs charging them to fully participate in such programs and make their contributions towards the development of the country rather than wasting time on unproductive matters on social medias.

Three participants (students) drawn from University of Nigeria (UN) Nsuka, A.B.U Zaria and Kano State Polytechnic, however, received the sum of N10,000 each as encouragement for participating in the just concluded round which ended up without any winner.

In the same vein, the Program Officer, applauded the efforts of journalists in the fight against corruption noting that, as the world recently celebrated the 2019 World Press Freedom Day, the Centre, frowns at threats, harassment, intimidations and unnecessary arrest to prevent journalists from doing their job.