The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International (TI), showed that 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. 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.
Also on its website, Transparency International explained that Nigeria hit a historic low on the 2021 CPI. The CPI is TI’s tool for measuring the levels of corruption in the systems of various countries around the world.
The maximum points a country can score is 100 points, and the least is zero. Zero signifies the worst performing countries and 100, the best-ranked.
Giving reasons for Nigeria’s worse corruption ranking, Transparency International said on its website that more than 100 powerful individuals were exposed as having used anonymous companies to buy properties with a total worth of £350 million in the United Kingdom alone. Secretive dealings among Nigeria’s power holders were previously reported as part of the Panama papers and FinCEN Files.
The organization listed seven weaknesses that impede Nigeria’s fight against corruption while calling for an immediate improvement for the sake of ordinary Nigerians.
The seven weaknesses include the damning audit report; security sector corruption; failure to investigate high profile corruption cases; illicit financial flows (IFFs); absence of asset recovery, protection of whistle-blowers, and other key anti-corruption legal frameworks; judicial challenges; corruption in the COVID-19 response and Twitter ban, shrinking civic space and intimidation of human rights defenders. The Presidency had to react to Transparency International’s report. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the president on media and publicity fired back at Transparency International, saying the report on corruption in Nigeria is unacceptable. He said the war against corruption under the Buhari administration does not need the validation of TI.
According to Adesina, the report should be ignored because it is foreign statistics without much validity. He added that corruption is a global challenge and not peculiar to Nigeria alone. He said the Buhari administration has fought corruption and all anti-corruption agencies are making efforts to ensure corruption is reduced in the country. Adesina added that Nigerians should be the ones to make such accusations and not foreign sources. He added that Transparency International’s report was an “indictment on all Nigerians, and not the Federal Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari alone.”
Was it not David Cameron, former British Prime Minister who made popular, the well known notion about the corruption of Nigeria when he said Nigeria was fantastically corrupt? Transparency International is only living up to its responsibilities as corruption watchdog.
News Echo asks if the federal government shouldn’t begin to live up to its responsibilities by fighting corruption and becoming the embodiment of good governance rather than bantering words with an organisation merely doing its job?
