2 October 2008
Lagos — In the midst of so much depressing news about infrastructural and institutional decay, slow venal and unpatriotic politics and other malfeasance that have marked our national life in the past years, Nigeria received a back-handed, even ironic, accolade from a surprising quarter- Transparency International (TI).
In its global ranking of countries perceived to be corrupt for the year 2008, Transparency International (TI) ranked Nigeria as one of the countries whose image as rampantly corrupt, has achieved appreciable improvement.
From a position of 142 among 180 countries surveyed in 2007, Nigeria is today in the 121st position. This, according to TI, represents a jump of 21 spots.
For a country that hugged the bottom rung of sleazy countries, along with the likes of Bangladesh, Myanmar and Haiti not long ago, many might see this improvement in the TI rankings as a sign that Nigeria's anti-corruption measures have begun to yield results.
But when the fine-prints of Nigeria's new, improved, corruption perception ranking is read, the reality is a lot more different and suggests only that Nigeria has merely jumped from the bare ground to the ant-hill, which is all the same.
This conclusion comes from the fact that the Berlin, Germany-based TI puts Nigeria's integrity score at 2.7 percent. Last year, it was 2.2. But the brutal fact is that on a scale of 0 to 10, a mark below 3 percent suggests 'rampant' corruption.
Since their surveys and publications, Nigeria has wallowed in the region below 3 percent-point of countries perceived to be very corrupt, according to TI's findings.
Nigeria was in the same position (142) in 2007 and 2006. In 2005 she ranked152 out of 180 countries in the corruption perception index (CPI). This year's position is the best for Nigeria since TI began its CPI rankings in 1998.
Howbeit, it could be said that, even though she is still seen as a rampantly corrupt country, Nigeria's anti-graft measures in the last few years, especially those executed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), may have started yielding positive results.
This assumption, though correct and optimistic, does not nullify the still persistent perception that, though things appear to be changing, they none-the-less remain the same.
Since its inception in 2003, the EFCC, especially under its past chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, had waged a bare-knuckles battle against our culture of graft.
While at it, many high-ranking Nigerians, including a former Inspector General of Police (IGP), ex-governors and senators, have been arraigned, tried or jailed for corruption by the EFCC.
Still, as is well known and documented, the business of corruption has neither abated nor have those alleged to be corrupt been diligently prosecuted, convicted and punished for their crimes.
As the anti-corruption agencies see it, the main obstacle to swift disposal of corruption cases lies with the courts and the high-powered, well-paid lawyers who use technicalities to stall the litigations. This has led the current Chair of EFCC, Mrs Farida Waziri, to call for special, fast-track courts to try corruption cases. However, Nigeria's improved position on the CPI ranking is a positive sign that the global business community is beginning to appreciate the impact of the government's war against corruption.
This should serve as a wake-up call on all stakeholders to intensify and deepen the war against corruption.
Nobody needs to be reminded of the negative light which corruption casts on Nigeria and its ability to pursue her development goals.
The cost of corruption on lost national opportunities is already enormous and needs to be scaled down if this nation is to record any growth at all, let alone meeting up with the much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Definitely, President Umaru Yar'Adua's desire to place Nigeria among the world's 20 biggest economies will be just a dream, if the current status of Nigeria persists.
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