ICPC’s Damning Corruption Report

The recent revelation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission that corruption in Nigeria’s three arms of government is 42 per cent has raised concerns on the effectiveness of the anti-corruption war by successive administrations, Wale Igbintade writes

In a frightening revelation, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) last week unveiled staggering statistics, highlighting the pervasive extent of corruption in Nigeria’s three arms of government – executive, legislature and judiciary – between 2022 and 2023.

The Provost of the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, Tunde Babawale, disclosed the alarming findings during the validation meeting of the Nigeria Corruption Index (NCI) Survey in Abuja. These revelations underscore a deeply ingrained culture of corruption that permeates both the country’s governance structures and private enterprises.

In the NCI Survey aimed at assessing the grand corruption impact in Nigeria, exploring sectors predominantly affected by corruption and gauging the societal perspective on this critical issue, Babawale revealed that corruption has become so pervasive and has also permeated the Nigerian society to an extent that it demands a collective change in mindset, behaviour, and intolerance to curb.

According to him, the survey conducted between 2022 and 2023 portrayed a dire scenario, with the corruption level identified within the legislative, judiciary, executive, and private sectors hitting a 42 per cent level. He expressed concerns about the findings of the NCI, which discovered that people had trivialized corruption and that the private sector had fuelled corrupt practices in the public sector.

Babawale said the NCI focused on corruption in high places, especially the three arms of government and the private sector. He noted that there had been other surveys on corruption by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), largely based on perception devoted to identifying the problem of petty corruption.

Drawing attention to the disconcerting revelations, Babawale revealed how the private sector’s involvement in corrupt practices, often disguised as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), has fuelled corruption in public institutions. He called for stringent measures to eliminate such unethical practices and advocated for the government’s intervention in scrutinising legislative oversight, often misused to extract bribes from both public and private sectors.

He said: “One of the things we found out is that people have built the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility fraudulently; they have used it to disguise the perpetration of corruption between the private and public sectors.

“What I mean by that is private companies sometimes bring out the concept of corporate social responsibility as real corporate social responsibility, when it is actually perpetuating corruption by giving officials bribes and even equipment. All the sectors have been found culpable and found to be highly corrupt; the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive; all of them have been found to be corrupt. Although at the level of the state, the score differs from one state to the other, the bottom line is that there is an overall score that we found and it is that over 42 per cent in our own scale is highly corrupt for the entire country.”

Babawale highlighted a significant distinction between this survey and previous assessments conducted by entities like the National Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He said that the NCI zeroed in on the implications of grand corruption, particularly within the government’s arms and the private sector.

“The difference in what we are doing is that we are surveying the impact of the effect of grand corruption and we are also looking at it from the perspective of different sectors of society, the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, as well as the sub-national government. So, the thinking that it is better for us to talk about grand corruption because of the greatest impact on the living conditions of Nigerians when policemen collect bribes on the roadside – that has effects, but not as much as somebody stealing N109 billion. We want to weigh the impact of such on society, how it differs from one sector to the other, and the ultimate objective is also to ensure that we are able to advise the government on policies that should be put in place in order to develop anti-corruption initiatives and interventions,” he said.

Pervasive corruption has always been identified as one of the greatest problems of Nigeria, stagnating growth and development. Many had predicted that if corruption was not tackled in Nigeria, the malaise could kill the country. This has made successive governments pledge to tackle and eradicate the menace when they assume power only for them to completely fail.

For instance, former President Muhammadu Buhari ascended to power in 2015 on the promises to save Nigeria’s ailing economy, secure Nigeria and fight corruption. Even when he claimed in 2022 that Nigeria was better off than he met it in 2015, this has proved to be incorrect, especially in the three focus areas of the administration.

Unfortunately, all the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reports during his regime ranked Nigeria high in corruption. For instance, in 2021, Nigeria was ranked 154th out of 180 nations assessed. In the report released in January 2022, the country scored 24 out of 100, a point lower than its performance in the previous 2020 CPI report.

Apart from Nigeria’s unimpressive ranking on Transparency International (TI), under Buhari’s watch, several cases of corruption were believed to have been swept under the carpet. His administration had also ignored actionable intelligence offered to law enforcement agencies in the Panama Papers and Pandora Papers with revelation on Nigeria’s past and serving officials who allegedly breached the country’s code of conduct.

Besides, Buhari also pardoned two former governors – Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and Jolly Nyame  of Taraba State – who were convicted and jailed for corruption, which many saw as a huge rollback of the gains of the fight against corruption.

During his campaigns, President Bola Tinubu promised to fight corruption by focusing more on preventive measures if elected as president in the 2023 election. He noted that part of his strategy would be putting a system for effective wealth redistribution in place, to greatly reduce the temptation to commit corruption.

He also vowed that his administration would support the existing anti-corruption institutions, and also address the underlying issues of corruption in the oil industry.

Tinubu promised to strengthen existing transparency mechanisms in the areas of public procurement, fiscal responsibility and whistleblower policy as preventive strategies against corruption. Additionally, he pledged to ensure that Nigerian workers had appropriate access to mortgages and other credit options. This, he said, would prevent them from paying from salaries in lump sums, which encourages corruption.

Supporting Babawale’s observations, Elijah Okebukola, a lead researcher on the NCI project, highlighted the comprehensive nature of their findings. “Our survey has underscored the prevalence of corruption at every level and in every sector across Nigeria. It’s an alarming indicator that demands immediate and effective intervention,” Okebukola asserted.

The Secretary of the ICPC, Mr. Clifford Oparaodu, echoed the sentiment, highlighting the insidious impact of corruption on the nation’s fabric and the urgent need for collective action against this societal menace.

The validation meeting intends to shed light on critical areas outlined in the NCI data, aiming to formulate robust strategies to combat corruption across government and private sectors.

Instances of controversial court judgments in recent times have added fuel to these concerns. The court decisions have faced criticisms from various quarters, for alleged biases, lack of transparency, and alleged involvement of financial interests.

The judiciary, often considered a bastion of justice, has witnessed public scepticism due to rulings perceived as favouring political affiliations or powerful entities. These instances have reinforced the narrative of corruption’s permeation across the country’s systems, compelling an urgent reassessment of Nigeria’s governance structures to restore trust and integrity in the nation’s judicial mechanisms.

What is obvious from the survey is that corruption has become so pervasive that Nigerians need to embark on a change of attitude, change of mindset and change of behaviour if the anti-corruption war is going to succeed.