• As Nigeria drops to lowest point on corruption index since 2013
• Buhari deserves credit for diminishing corruption, says Presidency
• ‘War against corruption requires participation of all citizens’
Transparency International (TI) has, again, passed a damning verdict on Nigeria’s anti-corruption war, ranking the country 149th on its yearly Corruption Perception Index (CPI) after it picked 25 points, the worst since 2013.
With the rating, Nigeria dropped three points from its last (2019) ranking when it sat 146th on the table. The 2020’s index was co-led by New Zealand and Denmark after they polled 88 points individually. They were followed by Finland, Switzerland and Singapore (a country that emerged from a stinky official corruption history under the late Lee Kuan Yew) in that order.In the latest assessment, Nigeria picked the same point with Cameroon, Mozambique, Madagascar and Tajikistan for the 149th position out of 179 countries surveyed. Nigeria ranks ahead of Somalia, which sits at the bottom, South Sudan, Sudan, Congo, Chad, Burundi, Guinea Bissau and a few other African countries. It, however, falls short of its peers such as Angola, Egypt, Algeria, Kenya and many others.
Stakeholders have described the latest rating as an open testimony of President Muhammadu Buhari’s inability to tame corruption in fulfillment of his electioneering promises ab
out six year ago. The Centre for Democracy and Development, Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Budgit Nigeria and other stakeholders are worried that the government’s inability to stem the tide is pushing the country to the extreme.
They have also noted that corruption has continued to manifest in the handling of COVID-19 relief disbursement, appointments and promotions in public offices, growing bribery and extortion in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), lack of commitment to framework that would enable anti-graft agencies to succeed, poor justice system and lack of commitment to implementing reports on cases of corruption by public officials.
President of the CITN, Dame Gladys Olajumoke Simplice, told The Guardian that rising cases of official corruption “makes the jobs of professionals very difficult” and the investment market unattractive to foreigners. She said “it is most unfortunate and sad” that the government appears helpless. “There is no sanction for wrong doing. If people know that if they steal N1 billion they will be able to bribe their ways through with N500 million and get away with the balance, they will continue to steal. This is taxpayers’ money. How do you then encourage the people to pay their taxes?” she asked.
Also speaking, a former Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Monday Ubani, described the TI ranking as a true reflection of the government’s handling of pending corruption cases. He recalled that the government has failed to take a firm and fair position on the case involving the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu.
Stressing that it makes no difference if the country agrees with the rating or not, Ubani said: “TI assessed all the previous administrations. When the All Progressives Congress (APC) was in opposition, it agreed with the rating. So, they must agree with it this time.” The Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani, referencing data from the World Bank, said impacts of the prevailing challenges could force Nigeria into a decade of economic backwardness and where it was in the 1980s.
Rafsanjani, who said the government has been tackling civil society organisations instead of addressing the deteriorating corruption in the country, stressed that growing cases of kidnapping, standing at 2,860 between 2019 and 2020, 27.1 per cent unemployment rate and other issues are direct consequences of corruption.
A Senior Officer with CDD, Austin Aigbe, noted that there is a lack of transparency in the emergency response of government on the COVID-19, adding that the processes were fraught with “incessant flouting of procurement guidelines, hoarding of relief materials and diversion of items for personal use.” He also raised alarm over growing nepotism in public service appointments and promotions, pointing to the controversies that followed the decision of the National Judicial Council (NJC) when eight of 33 judges recommended for appointment were children and relatives of current and retired justices of the Supreme or Appeal courts as a classic case of high-level corruption.
Commercialisation of employment into public offices, extortion and other issues were also, according to him, reasons Nigeria’s corruption perception is deteriorating.
Manager, Open Government and Institutional Partnership, BudgIT Nigeria, Tolulope Agunloye, lamented the inability of the administration to stop corruption in the security sector.He decried the bribery and extortion in the Police, citing the recent protest against police brutality as direct implications of decades of corruption in the force. A public policy expert and Principal Partner at Nextier, Patrick Okigbo, said the country is not yet ready to fight corruption.
“When we are ready to fight corruption, many of the pragmatic ideas to adopt are well documented,” Okigbo told The Guardian. A development economist, Dr. Chiwuike Uba, described the cost of rising corruption is “immeasurable”. “It has economic, social, financial, and even cultural and spiritual implications,” he said.
Uba, who is also the Board Chairman of Amaka Chiwuike-Uba Foundation (ACUF), continued: “The financial costs include the direct stealing of money that would have been deployed to the provision of public goods and services – quality and accessible healthcare, good education, human capital development, good roads, and other facilities.
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