In a world where perception is consistently shaping vital decisions, the recent release of the 2021 Corruption Perception Index, CPI, indicating that Nigeria ranked 154 out of 180 countries, would not come with excitement to most patriotic and brand-conscious citizens.
The report released by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, and Transparency International, TI, last Tuesday, revealed that Nigeria scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 CPI. With this score, the country went down five places lower, compared with her last performance in the 2020 report released last year. The rating placed Nigeria as the second most corrupt country in West Africa behind Guinea.
Presenting the report at a press conference in Abuja, the Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Rafsanjani, revealed the seven parameters used in their yearly ranking.
These parameters tagged ‘weaknesses’ are highlighted in the report as follows 1: The “Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs); Weakness 2: Security Sector Corruption; 3: Failure to Investigate High Profile Corruption Cases and prevention of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs); and 4: Absence of asset recovery, protection of whistle-blowers, and other key anti-corruption legal frameworks.
Other weaknesses are 5: Judicial Challenges; 6: Corruption in the COVID-19 Response; and finally, Weakness 7: Twitter ban, shrinking civic space, and intimidation of human rights defenders.
The report also revealed the urgent need for the Nigerian judiciary to speed up its delivery of judgment in the country comparison for this year, Nigeria ranks 154 out of 180 countries – five places down compared to the 2020 CPI results.
According to Rafsanjani, “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 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.”
However, according to the CISLAC boss, 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 out.
however, the report identified some weaknesses that led to Nigeria dropping five places in the 2021 CPI, which Deputy Director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, Kolawole Oluwadare, read:
‘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.
He also mentioned that recent revelations made on the 17th of January 2022 by BudgIT on the duplication of projects in the 2022 budget and the systemic corruption in the Nigeria Police Force that has sadly continued unabated.
Oluwadare went further, ‘With the police at the frontline of Nigeria’s criminal justice system, and with enormous powers to investigate and prosecute crimes, this weakness puts the country in a 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 a trace.
‘Of this figure, 88, 078 were AK 47 assault rifles and 3,907 assorted rifles and pistols. For context, these arms are enough to arm a force equivalent 3 to about 25% of the current strength of the Nigeria Police at 370,000 which explains the level of insecurity in the country’.
Speaking on the failure to Investigate High Profile Corruption Cases and prevent Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs), The Assistant Investigation Editor, CJID, Taiwo Adebayo said, “Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies have made commendable progress in their efforts to combat corruption in 2021 with an increase in convictions, however, high profile convictions of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) across political, regional and any other form of the 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.