The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN), has expressed concern over what he described as Nigerians’ declining confidence in the legal profession, warning that lawyers must reclaim public trust by upholding integrity and ethical values.

Aliyu spoke in Kano on Friday at the ICPC/Nigerian Law School zonal workshop on integrating anti-corruption studies into university law faculties and the Nigerian Law School under the theme, “Institutionalising Anti-Corruption Education in Nigerian Legal Training.”

The ICPC chairman said the conduct of some members of the legal profession, particularly in corruption-related cases, had raised serious questions among Nigerians about lawyers’ commitment to truth, justice and the rule of law.

“We need to ask ourselves whether Nigerians are happy with what they are seeing from the legal profession.

“There are issues in the public domain which all of us know. Whether we like it or not, they are shaping the narrative of this country,” he said.

Aliyu noted that many of those being prosecuted for corruption were educated professionals who had passed through Nigerian classrooms, arguing that universities and the Nigerian Law School must do more to produce lawyers with strong ethical foundations.

According to him, corruption is more effectively prevented through character formation than prosecution.

“By the time a case reaches the ICPC, society has already lost. Corruption is defeated much earlier in the classroom where future professionals are taught what kind of people they should become,” he said.

He described anti-corruption education as an essential component of legal training, stressing that a corrupt lawyer undermines the justice system itself.

“A corrupt engineer builds a weak bridge, but a corrupt lawyer destroys the mechanism through which every other wrong is meant to be corrected,” he said.

The ICPC chairman, however, acknowledged that curriculum reform alone would not solve the problem if educational institutions failed to uphold integrity in admissions, examinations and governance.

“We cannot ask students to be honest when they see the system rewarding the connected over the competent. Young people detect hypocrisy faster than we admit,” he said.

Aliyu pledged the commission’s support for the implementation of the anti-corruption education framework but stressed that its success would depend on lecturers and law faculties embracing it beyond the workshop.

He urged legal educators to lead by example, saying the future of the profession rests on the values imparted to aspiring lawyers.

“The true measure of our success will not be the number of corruption cases in court, but the number of ethical decisions made by lawyers when no one is watching,” he added.