…Report inaccurate, misunderstood – Presidency
President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015 with a promise to fight corruption which had been plaguing Nigeria for decades. However, the latest Transparency International’s rating of Nigeria on the corruption perception index has not favoured the country. SAMSON BENJAMIN in this report examines the report and seeks experts’ views.
Nigeria dropped to 149 on Transparency International (TI’s) 2020 Corruption Perception Index; the worst ranking received by Nigeria in recent time. The country also scored 25 out of a possible 100 points.
In the last TI rating in 2019, Nigeria was ranked 146th out of the 180 countries surveyed, scoring 26 points out of a possible 100. On a scale of zero to 100 in TI’s rating, zero means “highly corrupt,” while 100 stands for “very clean.”
This means that Nigeria is two steps worse off than she was in 2018, when she scored 27 points to place 144th out of 180 countries. The summation is simply that corruption in the country has worsened.
According to the latest ranking, Nigeria is now the second most corrupt country in West Africa with Guinea-Bissau the only country more corrupt than Nigeria in the sub-region.
In Africa, only 12 countries are perceived to be more corrupt than Nigeria. They are Zimbabwe, Chad, Eritrea, Burundi, Congo, Guinea Bissau, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan. Both Somalia and South Sudan were ranked as the most corrupt nations on earth.
The least corrupt countries in the world are Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Singapore, Sweden Switzerland, Norway, The Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg. The United Kingdom, Canada and Hong Kong were all ranked at 11, while the United States received one of its lowest ever rankings at 25.
According to the TI, it drew its conclusion from 13 data sources that captured the assessment of experts and business executives on a number of corrupt behaviours in the public sector including bribery, diversion of public funds, use of public office for private gain and nepotism in the civil service.
Presidency’s reaction
However, the Presidency has blamed Nigerians for the country’s poor ranking.
The senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, said this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme monitored by this reporter, barely two days after the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, discredited the IT’s report.
Responding to a question, Shehu said the report is a reflection of corruption by Nigerians and not by the Buhari administration.
He said, “I will tell you that this one by TI is not a judgement on Buhari or his administration or its war against corruption; I will tell you that this one is a judgement on Nigerians because if you look at the indices they used at arriving at these conclusions, they used eight indices, six of which showed Nigeria as being more or less Nigeria in the same position.
“The two that they dwelled on, that caused this backslide, are essentially Nigerian problems. They’re talking about the political culture of this country, vote-buying, thuggery. Is it Buhari that is a thug? We’re not doing thuggery.
“And when they talk about the justice sector, they are talking about perceived corruption in the judiciary. These perceptions are essentially not correct. Yes, there are issues in that sector, but so many changes are going on in that sector wouldn’t it have been nice if they acknowledged it so that you encourage those judicial officers that are upright, and then the system gets better.”
Inaccurate report
Similarly, the executive-secretary, National Anti-Corruption Network (NAN), Dr. Jide Fadimu, in a chat with this reporter, rejected the report, describing it as “inaccurate.” He argued that the Buhari administration has recorded achievements in the fight against corruption in the public service.
Fadimu questioned the sources of data the TI used in arriving at the latest report on the corruption perceptions index in Nigeria, accusing the non-governmental organisation of being biased to the Buhari administration in the past.
“We have 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,” he said.
According to him, verifiable facts and data available contradict the TI report. He urged Nigerians to stand by an administration that has done so much on asset recovery, prosecution, legislation, political will and leadership by example in the fight against corruption.
Soyinka’s view
However, Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said the regime of President Buhari has run out of steam in the fight against corruption.
According to him, this has resulted in the judiciary being manipulated by powerful people in the country. The playwright spoke during a television programme, Kakaaki, on AIT, which was monitored by our correspondent.
Soyinka said the system had become corrupted so badly that court cases were being stretched out through technicalities.
“There are so many people who should be in prison if this government had not run out of steam, and so the system is being manipulated. There are cases where the prosecution had reached the level where evidence had been given on governors who had been stealing and depositing in bits and pieces so as not to flout a certain regulation. I mean cases have been taken to that level and suddenly, silence. The EFCC, which I back solidly ever since the days of (Nuhu) Ribadu, in all kinds of ways, we no longer know the distinguishing from rights and left,” he said.
PDP’s take
Likewise, the Peoples Democratic Party said the 2020 corruption index report on Nigeria has further smeared the regime of President Buhari.
The party stated that the TI report, which shows Nigeria plunging to 149th on the corruption perception index in 2020; dropping 13 places since 2015, under Buhari’s regime “is an incontrovertible confirmation that our nation is more corrupt under President Buhari and the APC, than it was in 2015, when they took office.”
This was contained in a press statement by PDP’s national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan.
The statement read in part, “This descent into the abyss of corruption only goes to show that President Buhari’s anti-corruption stance is a mere swindle used to delude Nigerians while the vaults were laid open for APC leaders and officials of the Buhari administration to plunder.
“Indeed, the record of unbroken decline from 136th in 2016 to 144th in 2018, 146th in 2019 and now 149th in 2020, under President Buhari, the African Union (AU) Anti-Corruption Champion’, settles the now notorious fact that the Buhari administration and the APC are titleholders in corruption.
“The fact remains that no matter how lies and falsehood try to prevail, the truth will always come to light at the end of the day. From the oil and inland revenue sectors to security, health, agriculture, food security, healthcare, transportation, road infrastructure, power, education, environment, among other critical sectors, none was spared from the kleptomaniac fingers of corrupt APC leaders and the cabal in the Presidency.”
‘Unnecessary controversy’
However, in a chat with Blueprint Weekend, a public affairs commentator and columnist, Jide Ilesanmi, said the debate over Nigeria’s rating by TI was needless.
He said, “It was unwise, in my opinion, for the Nigerian authorities to have so heatedly called out TI over its 2020 ranking of Nigeria in the 149th position out of 180 countries sampled. To put it jocularly, presidential spokesperson, Shehu Garba, almost came to blows with the organisation’s personnel, leaving its Nigerian head, Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani, with little choice, but to disdainfully reply to him, asking the president to caution him.
“It is inappropriate and improper to do battle with international organisations for no other reason than that they gave us a lower rating than we thought we deserved. Imaginably, had TI advanced our position on the global league table, the regime would have characteristically lapped it all up and rolled out the drums to celebrate our new rating.
“What should have happened is a meeting between the body and Nigerian officials called with a view to learning from our pitfalls and to seeing how we can better improve our ranking on the Corruption Perceptions Index. At any rate, nothing stops a country that is bent on reform from achieving, next time round, a better position on the league table. That said, a process of self-examination will reveal why we scored lower than several previous years.”
Continuing, he said, “True, we are dealing here with a perceptions index which is probably not devoid of some subjectivity depending on whom the respondents happen to be. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that, while the regime has made and continues to make anti-corruption gestures, there is also, as a counter-narrative, a considerable amount of scandals and disclosures of sleaze, published in our media. For example, at about the same time as the TI report was made public, there was a report that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, had denied the allegation that he gave a bribe of $5 million to the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami. That report was nestled by another one in which one of our non-governmental organisations had called for a probe into alleged missing N4.4 billion National Assembly funds.
“Almost on a daily basis, there are new revelations of huge sums of money missing or allegedly stolen in one government department or another. Recall, for instances, the mouth-watering stories that trailed big contract bazaars in the Niger Delta Development Commission, a few months back, and the unhappy narratives of police brutality and corruption that accompanied the #EndSARS protests.
“The plenitude of stories of corruption in 2020 will obviously have shaped the perceptions of those who responded to TI’s research. Another way of putting the irony of apparently increasing corruption under a regime that has made anti-corruption its flagship programme is to say that while some reforms have been instituted, public sector corruption, once driven underground, has returned with a vengeance in several sectors of the political economy.
“Another instance of this awkward political trend is illustrated by the arraignment, before a probe panel, of the former anti-corruption Czar, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, over sensational allegations of corruption, including the personalisation and individualisation of humongous assets seized from former public officials. Some have even alleged that the anti-corruption fight is a very lonely crusade waged by Buhari, without the necessary support from those around him, including institutions set-up to complement and channel presidential initiatives.”
Smear campaign?
Meanwhile, a group, the National Transparency Initiative (NTI), Wednesday, warned the TI and other non- governmental organisations in the country to desist from smearing the reputation of President Muhammadu Buhari.
While addressing the media at a press conference in Abuja, NTI further frowned upon an attempt to tarnish the president’s image, describing their alliance against the country as “devilish.”
The secretary-general, Elder Tony Odey, who accused the TI’s poor rating of Nigeria in its latest corruption index, said the rating was aimed at undermining President Buhari’s legacy on corruption. He noted that the action was allegedly orchestrated to undermine the country’s sovereignty and integrity.
Odey further urged the executive director, Civil Society for Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa, and Oby Ezekwesili to stop the campaigns of calumny against the president, and Nigeria. According to him, they have portrayed the country and President Buhari in a bad light before the international community.
He said, “They begin the process by lining up respondents to provide responses that will skew the outcome of the survey in a manner that projects Nigeria as a country that is exceptionally more corrupt than other nations. Our concern is the implication of what such a negative reputation will cause the nation, especially as it relates to investors.”
The group, however, advised the TI to disambiguate its report for Nigeria and specifically show what states are responsible for the rating it is giving the country.
While charging disgruntled Nigerians to call off their offensive, he advised them to focus on things that would truly advance the well-being of the generality of Nigerians.
The group further urged Nigerians to join in advancing the well-being of the country, stressing that it would take more than “a jaundiced TI report to tarnish President Buhari’s legacy on the war against corruption.”
