Nigeria Is 35th Most Corrupt Nation –TI

THE global corruption watchdog, Transparency International, has ranked Nigeria as the 35th most corrupt nation in the world.

The Corruption Perception Index 2012 released on Wednesday revealed that Nigeria scored 27 out of a maximum 100 marks to clinch the 139th position out of the 176 countries surveyed for the report.

Nigeria, sharing the position with Azerbaijan, Kenya, Nepal and Pakistan, is said to have remained entrenched in corruption without making much progress to fight the menace.

 While countries such as Togo, Mali, Niger and Benin fared better, experts decried Nigeria’s poor performance in stamping corruption out.

Nigeria placed 143rd in the 2011 rankings, making it the 39th most corrupt country but experts said it was difficult to determine whether the country had improved in the ranking this year.

This, they said, was because 182, six more than this year’s, were ranked in 2011.

 The CPI 2012 confirmed recent media reports that President Goodluck Jonathan lied to the citizens when he claimed in his Independence day broadcast on October 1 that Nigeria was rated second after the United States by TI.  TI, of course, denied issuing such a report.

 Since 1995 TI has been publishing the CPI annually, ranking countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The CPI generally defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit.”

Reacting to the country’s new rating on the corruption scale, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, on Wednesday said the President could not be blamed for the latest corruption ranking of the country.

He said such reports were based on the comments of Nigerians who were always eager to tell the world how bad the country is.

He regretted that such aggregate of people’s perceptions did not recognise the various efforts being put in place by the government to fight corruption.

“The President does not sit in court to imprison people. There are institutions set up to do such. We do not follow the line in this country. We believe that if a market is not working in a village or there is an accident, the President is responsible,” he said.

According to TI, the 2012 index ranks 176 countries/territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The index draws on 13 surveys covering expert assessments and surveys of  business people.

The body particularly criticised Jonathan for paying lip service to anti-graft war and not showing enough drive to fight corruption, especially corruption involving past and current actors in his administration.

The president had also been carpeted for his reluctance in promoting transparency by failing to publicly declare his assets.

Ranging from the monumental fuel subsidy scam to the massive corruption uncovered in pension administration as well as the scams at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bureau of Public Enterprises, many Nigerians have already rated the Jonathan-led administration very low in the fight against corruption.

Government officials, including some of President Jonathan’s associates have been named in the brazen theft of public funds. Sons of both a past and incumbent national chairmen of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party were indicted and are currently undergoing trial for robbing the country of several billions of naira under the fuel subsidy regime.

On Monday, the country’s most widely read newspaper, The PUNCH, ran  a front page comment denouncing the management of the country’s resources by the Jonathan administration.

Appalled by the approval for the construction of N2.2bn banqueting hall for entertaining the President’s guests at the Villa, the paper’s editorial said, “Jonathan government has continuously demonstrated that the interest of the larger Nigerian citizens is not its priority and that profligacy is its cardinal principle.

“There are many depressing examples. In the 2011 budget, N18bn went for the maintenance of presidential planes, which could provide decent accommodation for 18 million people going by the UN-Habitat estimates. In the 2012 budget, it set aside N1.9bn for the purchase of an additional aircraft for the already bloated Presidential fleet and N1.5bn for guest houses for some senior lawmakers. This is happening in a country where a prized possession for many is a generator.”