Now second most corrupt country in West Africa
*ICPC faults report
By Ezeocha Nzeh
Nigerian government’s fight against corruption has once again come into serious scrutiny following reports on Tuesday by global anti-corruption coalition, Transparency International, which rated the country as currently the second most corrupt country in West Africa, after Guinea.
Transparency International (TI) in its 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index released on Tuesday, said Nigeria dropped five places, scoring 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 index.
This is coming against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s avowed commitment to its anti graft fight.
The report noted further that Nigeria’s currently ranks 154 ranking out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, showing a drop from its 149th position in the 2020 index.
According to to the report “In the Corruption Perceptions Index 2021 Nigeria ranks 154 out of 180 countries and territories, falling back five places from the rank of 149 in 2020.
“The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index released by Transparency International today shows corruption is on the increase in Nigeria.
“The country scored 24 out of 100 points in the #CPI2021, which is one point less compared to the score of 2020,” the organisation tweeted on its official Twitter handle, @TransparencITng, on Tuesday.
This was further corroborated by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), which in a separate event, announced the released the 2021 Corruption Perception Index, CPI, indicating that Nigeria ranked 154 out of 180 countries.
Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Rafsanjani, said during a press conference in Abuja, that the index revealed that Nigeria scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 CPI.
The Non Governmental Organization, which explained the seven parameters used for the ranking, identified the weaknesses as highlighted in the report to include Weakness 1: The “Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses Issues in Ministries, Departmentsand Agencies (MDAs); Weakness 2: Security Sector Corruption;
Weakness 3: Failure to Investigate High Profile Corruption Cases and prevent Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs); Weakness 4: Absence of asset recovery, protection of whistle-blowers, and other key anti-corruption legal frameworks;
Weakness 5: Judicial Challenges; There is a need for the Nigerian judiciary to speed up its delivery of judgment; Weakness 6: Corruption in the COVID-19 Response; and Weakness 7: Twitter ban, shrinking civic space and intimidation of human rights defenders.
He said: “Released exclusively in Nigeria by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), the National Chapter of TI, the index reveals that Nigeria scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 CPI, falling back one point compared to the 2020 CPI.
“In the country comparison for this year, Nigeria ranks 154 out of 180 countries – five places down compared to the 2020 CPI results.
“The CPI aggregates data from 8 (eight) different sources that provide perceptions by country experts and business people on the level of corruption in the public sector.
“While the index does not show specific incidences of corruption in the country, it indicates the perception of corruption in Nigeria. The index is completely impartial, objective and globally acknowledged as the most widely used cross-country parameter for measuring corruption.
“This CPI result comes at a point when the Nigeria as a country is battling with rising nation-wide insecurity, high unemployment rate and damning revelations around public finance management by the auditor general and investigative journalists, amongst others.”
The CISLAC boss maintained that the data used for the CPI was not collected by CISLAC/TI-Nigeria or any of their partners, the data collection was done by independent and reputable organisations with sound methodologies.
“It is important to stress that this is not an assessment of Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies who are making commendable efforts in reducing (in the fight against) corruption in Nigeria despite the political interference they face. Rather, the CPI goes beyond the anti-graft agencies”, he pointed.
He further stated that, “In October last year, we received the report of the committee set up by the government in March 2021 to review Nigeria’s rating on the 2020 CPI shortly after CISLAC/TI-2
“Nigeria released the 2020 CPI. CISLAC/TI-Nigeria sees this move as a good step and would like to call on the government to further examine the weaknesses listed below and consider actions which will tackle systemic corruption and salvage Nigeria’s deteriorating image when it comes to corruption.
“Accordingly, CISLAC/TI-Nigeria has listed key weaknesses to explain why Nigeria may not have improved in the fight against corruption. We feel that these areas require immediate improvement for the sake of the well-being of ordinary Nigerians and the economy.”
Breaking down the nations weaknesses in fighting corruption, the report identified that “Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)” report for 2019 published by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation in November 2021, have left Nigerians in awe.
Recent revelations made on the 17th of January 2022 by BudgIT on the duplication of projects in the 2022 budget do less to palliate the pandemic corruption currently experienced despite a rising unemployment rate of 33%.
Weakness 2: Security Sector Corruption: The systemic corruption in the Nigeria Police Force has sadly continued unabated and with the police at the frontline of Nigeria’s criminal justice system with enormous powers to investigate and prosecute crimes. This weakness puts the country in bad light.
As a matter of fact, the Police was indicted by the Auditor General’s report on the “NonCompliance/Internal Control Weaknesses Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) published in November 2021” and Nigerians are still struggling to understand how 178,459 arms and ammunition were missing from the armoury of the Nigeria Police without trace.
However, high profile convictions of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) across political, regional and any other form of divide have fallen short of public expectations.
“While we commend the arrest of cyber criminals and call on the anti-graft agencies to do more, there is a need to investigate high profile political cases including those of individuals who have switched political affiliations”, Adebayo said.
“Weakness 5: Judicial Challenges; There is a need for the Nigerian judiciary to speed up its delivery of judgment. The delay in treating high profile cases of corruption dampens the morale of anti-graft agencies. It is also important for the National Judicial Council (NJC) to ensure that judicial officers appointed are competent and qualified.
“The NJC should shun nepotism in its appointment of Judges and also when it undertakes disciplinary actions against Judges.”
But the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has wasted no time to fault the T I report
Chairman of the Commission, Dr Bolaji Owasanoye, questioned TI’s assessment parameters, which he said gave western countries receiving Illicit Financial Flows a clean bill while thumbing down countries that are victims of graft.
Speaking at a two-day training workshop for journalists organised by the ICPC at the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, Keffi, Nasarawa State, the commission boss observed that the data sources on which the ranking was based did not take into cognisance the advances against graft recorded by the country.
Also, a Media Consultant to the ICPC chairman, Oluyinka Akintunde, in a presentation said the global anti-corruption coalition assessment of Nigeria was based on outdated data sources.
He stated that only five out of the 13 data sources used by TI were current while eight others were based on 2017, 2018 and 2019, which were also used in previous years without taking cognizance of the actions or new developments in the country.
“Nigeria performed better under the African Development Bank country assessment but TI has not explained why it stopped using the ADB assessment.
“Transparency International will need to explain why the ADB country policy and institutional assessment is no longer used for the country’s score in CPI. We must know that the fight against corruption is not about numbers but systems, “Akintunde stated.
