Transparency International (TI) released a report that put Nigeria at number 149 out of 180 countries ranked on its Corruption Perception Index, and this has not settled well with the Nigerian Government.
In the report, Nigeria occupied second place on the most corrupt countries list in the West African region, leaving the top spot to Guinea-Bissau.
Reacting to the news, the Presidency, in a statement titled, ‘President Buhari deserves credit for diminishing corruption in public service’, said that the federal government’s Technical Unit on Governance Research will be detailing the sources of TI’s data.
The statement read, “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.
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“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 seaports we have.
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“We are also not unaware of the characters behind the TI in Nigeria whose opposition to the Buhari administration is not hidden.
“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.
“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.
“Additionally, preventative instruments deployed by this administration such as Treasury Single Account, Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System coverage expansion and the removal of 54,000 ghost workers from federal civil service saving us N200bn annually serve as evidence that perception is not reality.”
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Nigeria’s Rankings On The Index Report
Nigeria’s ranking on the Corruption Perception Index Report has fluctuated.
Going as far back as 2010 until now, Nigeria has shifted between 143, dipped to 136, and risen to its current position of 149.
Nigeria’s ranking from 2011:
2011: 143
2012: 139
2013: 144
2014: 136
2015: 136
2016: 136
2017: 148
2018: 144
2019: 146
2020: 149
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What Is The Corruption Perception Index?
This is an annualised publication by Transparency International based in Berlin, Germany, ranking countries “by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys,” since 1995.
Countries are rated on a CPI scale from zero to one hundred, with zero standing for a very corrupt country, while a score of 100 means the country is least corrupt.
Nigeria has a score of 25 over 100. Other African countries that rank low are: Zimbabwe (157); Chad (160); Comoros (160); Eritrea (160); Burundi (165); Congo (165); Guinea-Bissau (165); DR Congo (170); Libya (173); Equatorial Guinea (174); Sudan (174); Somalia (179); and South Sudan (179).
