The “other side” of whistleblowing practice: Experiences from Nigeria

Whistleblowing, the act of reporting or disclosing wrongdoing, is widely proven to have a practically useful mechanism in fighting corruption in public and private sectors. Within the ambit of the whistleblowing framework, the disclosure of corrupt practices is primarily justifiable only on the ground that the action is genuinely directed towards protecting the interest of the public. The usual benefit of financial reward to whistleblowers is secondary, as it basically aims at encouraging individual employees to expose unethical misconducts in their organizations. Regardless of this, whistleblowing intrinsically benefits the public as well as the individual(s) who raises the alarm against any dishonest acts. However, despite its benefits to the public and the individual informant, whistleblowing attracts certain heavy costs, mainly on the part of the whistleblower, mostly in the form of victimization or witch hunting, retaliation, denial of work-related benefits, recrimination, suspension from work and ev...