President Muhammadu Buhari

The Convention on Business Integrity Ltd GTE, a non-government, non- profit organisation has expressed deep worries over Nigeria’s worsening Corruption Perception Index CPI as indicated in the figures for 2021 recently released by the Transparency International TI.

The TI CPI released Tuesday, January 25, 2022, indicate that Nigeria featured prominently among the poor performing countries in terms of incidences of corruption, scoring 24 out of a possible 100 points and ranking an abysmal 154 out of the 180 countries ranked. The country also in concrete terms, declined from 28 points in 2016 to 24 in 2021 despite claims of fighting corruption by the government, a development that has been described as a historic low and discouraging.

A statement signed on behalf the group by the Stakeholders’ Engagement Manager, Babajide Anjorin, the group expressed deep worries that despite the anti-corruption toga worn by the government, the country has continued to sink further in terms of global CPI rating unlike her other African neighbours, who are making steady progress.

He cited the case of Kenya, which was in the same bracket score with Nigeria in 2016, having scored 26 points in 2016 as against Nigeria’s 28 points then, has progressively improved in its CP index ranking while Nigeria has progressively declined. In the recently released CPI figures, Kenya moved from 26 points in 2016 to 30 points in 2021 while Nigeria declined from 28 points in 2016 to 24 points in 2021.

He also cited the case of Ghana, which has remained relatively stable at 43 points, regretting that Nigeria ranks among countries such as Myanmar, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan and Guatemala.

“Despite the usual claim by Nigerian government officials that the government is making big

strides in its efforts at curtailing corruption, the failure of the government to take action on

government officials indicted in grand corruption such as exposed in the Niger Delta

Development Commission NDDC forensic audit as well as other revelations such as the Panama Papers, Pandora Papers and FinCEN Files reveals a lack of political will to comprehensively tackle corruption at its very roots.

“The culture of impunity that has emerged as a result of the failure of successive governments to frontally tackle the scourge of corruption in Nigeria has continued to fuel the negative perception of Nigeria as an endemically corrupt country and this perception is what is revealed in the CPI ranking of Nigeria.

“Also true to TI’s assertion that ’that corruption levels are at a worldwide standstill’, Nigeria’s class of low performers in the CPI remains largely unchanged dispelling any notion of being singled out as agents of the Nigerian government will have the world believe”, the group also said.

It however admitted that modest and incremental reforms are beginning to gain roots in the maritime sector, where the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network MACN in collaboration with the Nigeria Shippers Council NSC, the Independent Corrupt and Other Related Offences Commission ICPC and Technical Unit on Anti-Corruption Reforms TUGAR and other port agencies are making some efforts.

These reforms in the maritime industry are being carried out through the instrumentality of the Port Service Support Portal PSSP domiciled at the NSC and the Project Steering Committee PSC, the Nigerian Port Process Manual NPPM, which led to the formation of the Port Standing Task Team PSTT.

The group also observed that such collective action initiative is not replicated in other sectors and therefore recommended such model for anti-corruption reforms in the country, arguing that for anti-corruption efforts to be effective and bear results, preventive reforms involving all relevant stakeholders have proven to be more effective in the medium and long term.

It therefore strongly recommended that the Federal Government of Nigeria should adopt this model in other segments of the society with a view to remedying the country’s worsening corruption perception rating.

Transparency International is  a global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption. The CPI measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption. In the statement accompanying the 2021 report, TI acknowledged ’that corruption levels are at a worldwide standstill’ and that ‘31 countries have made no significant progress against corruption in the last decade.

The report shows that two-thirds of countries score below 50, an indication that they have serious corruption problems, while 27 countries are at their lowest score ever.