Nigeria Rated 8th Most Corrupt Nation

Nigeria's Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

By Daniels Ekugo

Anti-corruption nonprofit Transparency International, TI, has released its 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, which surveyed residents in 107 countries, ranking Nigeria, Zambia, Paraguay, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Venezula and Russia as the largest countries on the globe with active corruption indices with Liberia and Mongolia leading the table.
According to the report, the world’s corrupt nations differ in many ways. Four are located in Africa, three in Latin America and two in Asia. These nations also vary considerably in size and population. Mongolia has just 3.2 million residents, while Mexico, Nigeria and Russia are three of the largest countries on the globe, each with more than 100 million people.
In Nigeria, 84% of those surveyed by Transparency International claimed corruption had increased in the past two years, a higher percentage than almost any other country in the world.
Troublingly, 75% of those surveyed also said the government was, at best, ineffective at fighting corruption, worse than in all but 10 countries.
TI says Nigeria is heavily dependent on the oil industry, yet the government refuses to act on accusations that the oil companies are underreporting the value of the resources they extract and the tax they owe by billions of dollars.
The report adds that “certain transparency groups also blamed politicians for encouraging corruption. In 2012, Nigeria had just the 37th largest GDP in the world, despite having the world’s seventh largest population. In Liberia, the majority of Liberians surveyed said they believed the country was run either largely or entirely by a few entities acting in their own self interest.
“A world-leading 86% of residents who spoke to Transparency International claimed their government had been either ineffective or very ineffective at fighting corruption, while 96% of residents claimed Liberia’s legislature was corrupt, also the highest percentage of any nation. A stunning 75% of residents surveyed claimed they had paid a bribe to secure some service, trailing only Sierra Leone.
“In all, 80% of the population had at one point been asked to pay a bribe. Recently, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf fired the country’s auditor general for corruption.Many of those surveyed in the highly corrupt countries also felt their governments were not holding up their end of the bargain.”
According to the report, “in seven of the nine countries, more than half of those questioned felt their government was ineffective at fighting corruption. In Liberia, 86% of residents surveyed said their government was ineffective at fighting the problem. This was the largest proportion of any of the 107 nations Transparency International surveyed. While corruption appears to affect every part of the public sector, certain segments were much worse than the rest.
“Globally, at least 60% of respondents claimed political parties and police were corrupt. Additionally, more than 50% of people stated their legislature, their public officials and their judiciary were corrupt.
In the world’s most corrupt nations, those institutions were, naturally, even worse. In Nigeria, 94% of people claimed their political parties were corrupt, the most in the world. Similarly, 96% of Liberians reported their legislature was corrupt, also the most in the world. In eight of the nine most corrupt nations, more than 80% of residents considered the police to be corrupt.”
Saharareporters