The Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman, has said the 2020 report recently released by Transparency International (TI) on Corruption Perception Index (CPI), rating Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in the world has a political undertone.
The report stated that Nigeria scored 25 out of 100 points in the 2020 CPI, which means Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranking 149 out of 183.
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But reacting, Lukman in a statement on Tuesday said it was a negative campaign aimed at demarketing the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Lukman said the report was an attempt to politicise the fight against corruption largely because it completely “ignored” all the empirical cases that should have provided objective indicators for the performance of Nigerian government.
“This is the underlying narrative in the CPI report. It is basically more of a political campaign, if you like for 2023. Nigerians, including local leaders of civil society groups and their international partners are free to make their political choices and decisions. But they should be transparent about it.
“It mustn’t be a case of shadowboxing Nigerian citizens and forcing them to kowtow political choices fraudulently contrived because Nigerian citizens are committed to the fight against corruption!
“No doubt such a damning report should be disturbing to every Nigerian, including the President.
“For a government that prioritises the fight against corruption to have been condemn in the way the CPI report did, it is not only indicting but troubling,” he said.
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