Nigeria’s corruption burden got worse in 2017, as Africa’s largest economy dropped a position in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) from 28 spot in 2016 to 27 in 2017, as compiled from the 2017 report by Transparency International (TI).
The German-based organisation ranked 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople.
A scale of 0 to 100 was used to judge the countries, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. This year, the index found more than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of 43.
Africa most populous nation’s scored of 27 was below the average 32 score of the sub-Saharan Africa region, as the region was ranked one of the worst performing followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia with average score of 34.
Nigeria ranked 148 position out of the 180 countries that were surveyed in 2017, higher than the 136 position out of 176 countries in 2016, which is also further up from the 136 position out of 175 countries in 2014. The 2017 position was also four spots higher than the 2013 position where Nigeria was at 144 out of 177 countries.
Meanwhile, New Zealand and Denmark rank highest with scores of 89 and 88, respectively. Syria, South Sudan and Somalia rank lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9, respectively. The best performing region was Western Europe with an average score of 66.
Although, Muhammadu Buhari, the fourth democratic president of Nigeria, has an agenda to fight an anti-corruption war, a war against all forms of corruption in Nigeria. During the President’s election campaign in 2015, he vowed to fight against corruption and insecurity if elected.
Since his election in April 2015, anti-graft war remains one of his topmost priorities. The anti-graft war was endorsed by the President of the United States. The United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, at the World Economic Forum held at Davos in Switzerland, extolled Buhari’s anti-graft war.
In October 2015, the United Kingdom pledges her support for Buhari’s anti-corruption war. According to Grant Shapps, minister for international development, “UK is fully committed to helping Nigeria increase its security, stability and prosperity.”
Also, Buhari was awarded as African Union’s Anti-Corruption Champion in the 30th African Union Summit held in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa in January of 2018.
An activist was however of the opinion that the impact of the anti-corruption war and the acknowledgement by the international bodies seem not be felt in the country, judging from the backdrop in the 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index report by the TI.
