Godsgift Onyedinefu
Again, Nigeria has dropped five places on the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International on Tuesday.
This is Nigeria’s second consecutive year of decline in TI’s rating, the country scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 index ranking 154 out of 180 countries. In the 2020 index, Nigeria had scored 25 out of 100 points, ranking 149 out of the 180 countries surveyed. This means Nigeria dripped five places from 149 to 154.
According to the Civil Society Advocacy Legislative Centre (CISLAC) , this decline could be an indication that Nigeria may not have improved in the fight against corruption.
The CPI aggregates data from 8 (eight) different sources that provide perceptions by country experts and business people on the level of corruption in the public sector. While the index does not show specific incidences of corruption in the country, it indicates the perception of corruption in Nigeria.
Auwal Musa, Executive Director, CISLAC described the index as completely impartial, objective and globally acknowledged as the most widely used cross-country parameter for measuring corruption.
This CPI result comes at a point when Nigeria as a country is battling with rising nation-wide insecurity, high unemployment rate and damning revelations around public finance management by the auditor general and investigative journalists, amongst others.
Musa highlighted some reasons why Nigeria may have dropped, they include: security sector corruption, damning audit report, failure to investigate high profile corruption cases, absence of critical anti corruption frameworks, judicial challenges, and twitter ban.