Still corrupt

Hardball

YET again, the Federal Government rejected Transparency International’s (TI) assessment of corruption in the country. Nigeria was 146th out of 180 countries, according to the organisation’s 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Also, Nigeria was ranked the fourth most corrupt country out of 19 countries in the West African region

According to TI’s head in Nigeria, Auwal Rafsanjani,  “From fraud that occurs at the highest levels of government to petty bribery that blocks access to basic public services like healthcare and education, citizens are fed up with corrupt leaders and institutions.”

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) described the rating as “jaundiced and illogical,” saying, “We insist that the rating is a far cry from the evident strides and achievements so far accomplished by the anti-graft agency in the fight against corruption, particularly under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.”

It’s bad news that corruption is still a serious problem in Nigeria, despite the anti-corruption war of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the last four years plus.

Significantly, TI’s rating is supported by a public survey by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) last year  involving  2,549 respondents across  the  country’s six  geo-political zones and  covering eight states –  Ondo, Enugu, Rivers, Lagos, Adamawa, Kano, Kaduna and Kwara- which  showed that public opinion on corruption was bad.   Abuja was added as a sampling area because of its status as the country’s capital.

According to the survey, “96.2% of the respondents believed corruption remains a serious problem in Nigeria today. There was no significant difference in opinion on this issue across the different geo-political zones surveyed.”  Also, the survey found that “84.5% of Nigerians believed corruption affects them.”

The most disturbing aspect of the report was that “Almost half of the respondents (43.5%) surveyed do not believe that corruption can be successfully fought in Nigeria.” This suggested that the public believed the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption effort was going nowhere. Worse still, it also suggested that corruption would always be a big problem in Nigeria.

If TI’s CPI is perceived as a foreign report, the same thing can’t be said about SERAP’s survey. It’s significant that the two organisations, one foreign, and the other local, reached similar conclusions on the state of corruption in the country.

Critics of TI’s low rating of the country shouldn’t expect a dramatic improvement when there has been no dramatic victory in the war against corruption.