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  • Nigeria maintains very low score on Transparency corruption index – CISLAC

    Nigeria maintains very low score on Transparency corruption index – CISLAC

    By Joyce Remi-Babayeju

    As Transparency international, TI, released the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index CPI, today, the Corruption rating reveals that Nigeria still maintains a very low score of 24 out of 100 points in 2021/ 2022.

    The CPI launched today in Abuja by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, revealed that from 2021- 2022 Nigeria has not improved in it’s fight against corruption, in 11 years.

    Execurive Secretary of CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Musa ( Rasfsanjani) who launched the CPI published by CISLAC lamented that despite the claim by the Federal Government of Nigeria to fight corruption sadly it is a problem in the country.
    Rasfsanjani said,” There has been no change in the country scoring between 2021 and 2922, adding that in comparison Nigeria ranks 150 out of 154 on CPI results.

    According to CISLAC and TI Nigeria notes that while Nigeria moved 4 places up on the country ranking , the nation has maintained its previous score of 24 which is the lowest score on the CPI since 2021, in the last 11 years.

    He said,” To fight corruption, the Federal, State and Local Government must be on the same page but sadly it is left to the Presidency alone.”

    He further noted that apart from corruption in the private and public sectors corruption is also the security sector, adding that recruitment of personal is often enmeshed in corruption while arms are brought into the country from porous boarders.

    CISLAC further listed the key weakness which will need to be improved is pardon of convicted high profile individuals by current administration in Nigeria is a major setback in efforts to address corruption in Nigeria.
    Prevalence of high profile corruption as another major challenge , citing the recovery of 30 billion naira from the former Accountant General if the federation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
    ” Increase in oil theft with continuous occurrence happening despite presence of security agencies, and judicial challenges among others.

    CISLAC however commended the efforts of agencies like ICPC and EFCC in their fight against corruption, adding that such Agencies should be giving the enabling tools to enhance their job.
    Other factors challenging fight against.corruption Rasfsanjani is political manipulation and control by politicians is undermining efforts of these security
    agencies.

    Meanwhile, CISLAC has called on the Nigerian Government to fight corruption , the Presidency, INEC , political parties , security actors and other stakeholders should ensure a free, fair and credible elections.
    ” Ensure adequate consultation with stakeholders like citizens, media, CSOs before Presidential pardons are granted.

    Transparency in the petroleum subsidy process by investigating and prosecution of those found wanting, adding that judiciary should ensure justice is delivered as the elections is fast approaching.

    CISLAC spokesman, Samuel Asimi while presenting the corruption perception index methodology explained that the corruption index data was collected from 13 sources and the manifestation of corruption was captured by the CPI using index on bribery , diversification of public funds, prevalence of Officers using public office for private gain without facing consequences, red tape and mediocrity among others.

  • Transparency International Blames Desperate Politicians For Underage Voters

    Transparency International Blames Desperate Politicians For Underage Voters

    The Head of Transparency International, Nigeria, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, has blamed the registration of underage voters by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on “desperate politicians”.

    Rafsanjani, who is also the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, said he is not surprised by the recent discovery of a large number of underage voters on the INEC register given the desperation of some politicians to undermine the electoral process to their own advantage.

    “It didn’t come as any surprise given the desperation of some politicians in this country to do anything possible to undermine the credibility of the 2023 general election and also dash the hope of Nigerians who are yearning for quality change by ensuring that we have a fair, free and credible election in this country.

    “So, those set of politicians will connive with people that are working in INEC to undermine even the effort of INEC itself,” Rafsanjani said on Channels Television Sunrise Daily on Friday.

    While admitting that some of these disturbing issues are affecting public confidence, he said he is aware that the leadership of INEC is determined to see that the 2023 election is conducted as free, fair, and credible.

    He also called for the investigation of earlier allegations by the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) that the INEC register for Imo State is filled with fictitious names.

    “You will recall that this same suspicion or this same allegation was raised some months ago by the association of political parties in Nigeria where they alleged in Imo State that some names were imported. The allegation they made that time maybe it was not taken seriously, but if incidents like this are happening, it means that the allegation they made was potential enough to be investigated,” Rafsanjani added.

    Earlier, INEC admitted that some of their staff are complicit in the registration of underage voters but appealed to Nigerians to help the Commission purge its register of all irregularities. The electoral umpire said that is the main reason it published and displayed the register.

  • TI’s CPI report politically motivated – PGF DG

    TI’s CPI report politically motivated – PGF DG

    Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman, has faulted the recently released report by Transparency International (TI) 2020 report of Corruption Perception Index (CPI) on Nigeria, accusing the body of being politically motivated.

    The 2020 report claimed that Nigeria scored 25 out of 100 points in the 2020 CPI, meaning Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranking 149 out of 183.

    But responding to the report through a statement released in Abuja, the APC chieftain said the report was based on opinions without reliable evidences.

    According to him, the report is a poor attempt to politicise the fight against corruption largely because it completely ignores all the empirical cases that should have provided objective indicators for the performance of the Nigerian government.

    “While it is important to stress that no government can be perfect and no government can successfully eliminate corruption, the CPI 2020 report on Nigeria present a very bad approach to engage the Nigerian government in the fight against corruption.

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    “How can any report of Nigeria’s fight against corruption in 2020, for instance, completely ignore some of the landmark corruption cases in 2020 such as the order for forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)?

    “If the CPI report is in anyway correct that Nigeria dropped three point in 2020 to 149 from 146 in world ranking, how come Nigeria gained 15 points on the World Bank ranking of ease of Doing Business, emerging to 131st from 146th? The issue, which is a source of frustration to both the government and every patriotic Nigeria should be the question of what needs to be done to accelerate the process of securing judgement in corruption trials.

    “This is a matter that would require some reform of our criminal justice system. Without securing judgement leading to conviction of corrupt public officials, the fight against corruption will be weak in the country. This is not a focus of the CPI.

    “The challenge bordering on the management of our criminal justice system would appear to be responsible for the embarrassing situation whereby although judgements were secured in some corruption cases in Nigeria, which include the cases of Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu and Chief Olisah Metuh, they were reversed by Courts of Appeal and retrial ordered.”

    Lukman said it is very difficult to reconcile the CPI 2020 report with most of the report about the performance of Nigerian government 2020.

    He added that the report is part of moves towards the 2023 elections.

  • FG faults TI-CPI rating, says not true reflection of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agenda

    FG faults TI-CPI rating, says not true reflection of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agenda

    The Federal Government has said Nigeria’s low rating in the 2020 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI) does not truly reflect the great strides by the country in its fight against corruption.

    In a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, assured that the country’s anti-corruption agenda, which has placed great emphasis on corruption prevention measures and the building of integrity systems, remains on course.

    The Minister said the implementation of the various reforms, especially in the Ease of Doing Business, is expected to yield positive outcomes in the country’s corruption perception and other relevant assessments in the next 12 to 24 months.

    ”For instance, following the release of the 2019 TI-Corruption Perception Index, the government initiated reforms to improve on Nigeria’s Ease of Doing Business indices. This is because we found that up to 40% of the country’s corruption perception survey indices relates to business processes and general public service delivery
    processes. Government’s swift action has led to major reforms in the processes at our ports and business process points,” he said.

    Lai Mohammed said in addition to placing more emphasis on corruption prevention measures and building of integrity systems, high profile corruption cases are currently under investigation and prosecution.

    He noted that the emphasis on preventive mechanisms is in response to various local and international reviews and evaluation that Nigeria has gone through, including those from the United Nations Convention
    Against Corruption (UNCAC) and even from the TI-CPI.

    ”In response to these evaluations, a number of significant policies have been instituted to enhance transparency and accountability, and prevent corruption. Even in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of key transparency and accountability policies were developed and are currently being implemented,” the Minister said.

    He listed such policies as including the launch, by the ICPC, of the National Ethics Policy which addresses integrity issues on all sectors of the polity and is directly linked to a key pillar of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS), which is Ethical Reorientation; efforts by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to energize the Code of
    Conduct for Public Officers (CCPO) and the launch of the Nigerian Port Process Manual (NPPM), which is ultimately aimed at sustaining the country’s improvement in the Ease of Doing business.

    ”While we expect the results from these reforms to speak for us in due course, we are also taking measures to improve our data collection and retrieval on these issues to reduce the current under-reporting of
    our ongoing corruption reduction measures,” Mr. Mohammed said.

    He said having analyzed the 2020 TI-CPI rating for Nigeria, the Federal Government is interrogating a number of issues and discrepancies that have been observed in the rating process, including some data sources in which Nigeria’s scores have remained flat over the past 10 years, reflecting no improvement, decline or fluctuation.

    ”This is very improbable given the nature of behaviour of variables, which are normally influenced by a variety of factors (which is the reason they are called ‘variables’). In this case, the corruption scores would have been affected by changes in the size and structure of the public sector over the past 10 years, changes in policies and
    personnel and systems over the period including, for instance, process automation, etc. There is therefore a need to verify that there is no transposition of figures from year to year due to absence of current
    data,” the Minister said

    Also, he said, different assessments on the same indicators (for instance corruption in the bureaucracy) by different rating institutions have generated different scores and different rankings across the ranking agencies

    ”There is a need to understand why these variations occur, and consequently the robustness of the methodology and validity of data,” Alhaji Mohammed said, adding that there are missing assessments for Nigeria in the data entries where the country has performed well in previous CPI calculations, like the African Development Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment.

    ”There is a need to understand why scores for this assessment have not been recorded for Nigeria for the past two years, which has had the effect of reducing Nigeria’s cumulative score and ranking relative to countries with those scores included in their CPI for both years,” he added.

  • TI Report: Buhari has reduced corruption in Govt – Presidency slams report

    TI Report: Buhari has reduced corruption in Govt – Presidency slams report

    The presidency said President Muhammadu Buhari deserves credit for diminishing corruption in the public service.

    Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement Thurday night, assured that Buhari will continue to support anti-corruption agencies.

    Shehu condemned the latest Transparency International (TI) report on Corruption Perceptions Index in Nigeria.

    The presidency declared it was not an accurate portrayal of the facts on ground.

    The Buhari administration said the Technical Unit on Governance Research (TUGAR) will provide more detailed information on the sources of the TI data.

    The statement said the government was aware of “the characters” behind the body’s verdict, adding that their opposition “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.”

    The presidency dared the watchdog to “come clean and desist from further rehashing of old tales.”

    Shehu pointed out that N1.2trillion was recovered by EFCC between 2009 and 2019.

    “N939bn of that total was recovered between 2015 – 2019 with less than N300billion recovered in the first six years”, he noted.

    The aide further cited preventative instruments deployed by the Buhari administration.

    It listed the Treasury Single Account (TSA), Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) coverage expansion, and the removal of 54,000 ghost workers from federal civil service “saving N200bn annually”.

    The presidency advised Nigerians to stand with the APC administration that has “done so much” on asset recovery, prosecution, legislation, and shown will in the fight against corruption.