Nigeria drops in fresh TI’s corruption ranking

A report released Thursday by the Transparency International shows that Nigeria again recorded a decline in the Corruption Perception Index in 2020.

The report was titled “Corruption in Pandemic Response and Law Enforcement Drags Nigeria’s Corruption Perception Further Down”.

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It showed that Nigeria scored 25 out of 100 points in the 2020 CPI, falling back by one point compared to 2019 when it scored 26.

The report was jointly signed by the CISLAC/TI Nigeria, Centre for Democracy and Development and BudgIT.

“In the country comparison for this year, Nigeria ranks 149 out of 183 countries, three places down compared to 2019 results,” it read.

The “CPI aggregates data from eight different sources that provide perceptions by Nigeria’s business community and country experts on the level of corruption in the public sector.

While the index does not show specific incidences of corruption, it is an indication of the perception of the Nigerian public about the state of corruption in the country.”

It recalled that the World Bank in its report on ‘Rising to the Challenge: Nigeria’s COVID Response’ in December 2020, had warned that in the next three years, an average Nigerian could see a reversal of decades of economic growth and the country could enter its deepest recession since the 1980s.

“The Council on Foreign Relations which is an independent think tank organization, Nigeria witnessed a total of 2,860 kidnappings in 2020 which was up from 1,386 in 2019.

“The picture is further gloomy when taking into consideration the Unemployment Data for the second quarter of 2020 released by the National Bureau of Statistics.”

It said each of these challenges could be linked to corruption and mismanagement of public resources which further exacerbated the economic and health impact of the terrible global pandemic.

Buhari deserves credit

In its reaction to the report, the Presidency said the Buhari Administration deserved credit for diminishing corruption in the public service and would continue to vigorously support prevention, enforcement, public education and enlightenment activities of anti-corruption agencies.

Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement, said: “We’re currently analyzing the sources of data used in arriving at the latest Transparency International report on Corruption Perceptions Index in Nigeria since by their own admission, they don’t gather their own data.

“This report is not an accurate portrayal of the facts on ground.

In the coming days, the government’s Technical Unit on Governance Research will be providing more detailed information on the sources of the TI data.

“While this is being awaited, the examination carried out on their 2019 report showed that 60 percent of their data was collected from businesses and other entities with issues bordering on transparency and the ease of doing business at the ports.

“Although this is a government ready to learn from mistakes and make corrections, the economy of this country, in its fullness, is bigger than the sea ports we have.

“We’re also not unaware of the characters behind the TI in Nigeria whose opposition to the Buhari administration is not hidden.

“We’ve repeatedly challenged TI to provide indices and statistics of its own to justify its sensational and baseless rating on Nigeria and the fight against corruption. We expect them to come clean and desist from further rehashing of old tales.

“A Naira denominated review that excludes recoveries in Dollars, Pounds, Euro shows that a sum of N1.2tn was recovered by EFCC between 2009 – 2019. N939bn of that total was recovered between 2015 – 2019 with less than N300bn recovered in the first six years.”