By Joy Baba-Yesufu, Abuja
Corruption has been described as the major challenge hindering growth and development of Nigeria as the country is consistently ranked one of the most corrupt countries.
This was the major focus at a national dialogue on anti – corruption organized by Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) held in Abuja.
ANEEJ Executive Director, Rev. David Ugolor said the 2022 Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reports ranked Nigeria 150 out of 180 countries adding that though the latest ranking was four places higher than the 2021 CPI ranking for the country, Nigeria still scored 24 out of 100 points which was not different from the 2021 CPI score falling back one point compared to the 2020 CPI.
He further said the Federal Government of Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari administration while working with the international community showed commitments and determination to fight corruption and also expressed clear road map on how to trace, track and repatriate looted assets to countries of origin to finance development.
“To foster continuity and sustenance of the successes recorded during the previous administration, there is therefore the need to bring stakeholders together to articulate the key areas the new administration should focus on, so as not to lose the gains achieved in the past eight years. This is one of the reasons why this national dialogue was convened”.
He said “According to the UN and the AU, around $148 billion is stolen from Africa annually by political leaders, multinational corporations, the business elite and civil servants with complicity of banking and property industries in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
“It is particularly important as ANEEJ assessment report on the implementation of anti-corruption commitments in Nigeria showed that actions need to be taken on several issues. Some laws have been enacted and certain actions need to be taken to drive the implementation.
“There are also pending laws that should be enacted to strengthen anti-corruption work in the country. The recently adopted national anti-corruption strategy also requires action to avoid the shortfalls of the past and the anti-corruption agencies need to be strengthened to be able to handle emerging issues”.
Also speaking, the founding Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development, Dr Utibe Uzor said from the ratings of Transparency International, there is still a lot of work to be done to deal with corruption because corruption is deeply, systemic and wide spread in Nigeria.
Dr Uzor said the most important thing is to adopt the whole of society approach that every stakeholder including government, citizens, media, development partners and everyone play their role to ensure that corruption is reduced to the barest minimum possible.
“Any society, institution or organization that has monopoly, that has unfertile and uncontrolled discretion where things are done in secret there is no transparency, nobody ask them questions, there is no accountability, the system itself does not have integrity, there will be corruption” he noted.
