AFRICMIL commends Senegal’s whistleblower protection law, urges Nigeria to enact similar legislation

The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has commended Senegal for passing a whistleblower protection law.

The law, enacted by Senegal’s national assembly on August 26, was developed under the administration of President Diomaye Faye.

The passage of the law makes Senegal the first francophone sub-Saharan African country to adopt such legislation.

The legislation allows whistleblowers to report wrongdoing anonymously and securely, either through internal mechanisms or designated authorities.

It also provides rewards of up to 10 percent of recovered assets for disclosures that lead to the recovery of illicit funds.

In a statement issued on Monday, Chido Onumah, the coordinator of AFRICMIL, described the legislation as a landmark step for transparency and accountability in West Africa.

Onumah said the development is in line with resolutions from the first sub-regional conference on whistleblowing and whistleblower protection in West Africa, held in Abuja in November 2024.

“During that event, it was noted that among ECOWAS member states, only Ghana had a dedicated whistleblower protection law. With Senegal’s adoption of this law, the country now joins Ghana in leading the region in meaningful anticorruption reform,” the statement reads.

“While we celebrate this advancement, we commend the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) for the role they played in pushing for the law and continued advocacy towards strengthening democracy in Senegal.”

He said the Senegalese government must work with civil society to ensure effective implementation.

“We congratulate the people of Senegal, legislators, and civil society champions, including our partners at PPLAAF, whose resolve has made this milestone possible,” he said.

“With this law, we move closer to a West Africa where transnational crime is curtailed, transparency prevails, corruption is exposed, and whistleblowers are protected rather than persecuted.”

The AFRICMIL coordinator noted that the enactment of the law strengthens the Whistleblowing Advocacy Coalition of West Africa (WACOWA), which was formed at the Abuja conference.

“Nigeria introduced a whistleblower policy, which is managed by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), a unit in the Federal Ministry of Finance, in December 2016,” he added.

“Nine years later, despite the efforts of civil society organisations like AFRICMIL and other stakeholders, the country has not been able to move from policy to law.

“While Nigerians were initially enthusiastic about the policy which led to massive recovery of stolen public funds and physical assets for the government, there has since been a significant loss of interest in submitting tips to expose corruption and other wrongdoing in the public interest.

“Many people say the dwindling interest is due to the lack of a legal instrument to ensure the protection of whistleblowers.”

Onumah urged the federal government to enact a similar law, stressing that it is long overdue.