Transparency International (TI) has said that the present Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of the country was intolerably standing at 2.7 out of a maximum 10 points, representing 27 per cent, in the year 2008, stating that the country was still very much below a pass mark in its anti-corruption war.

Secretary General of Transparency In Nigeria (TIN), an affiliate of Transparency International, Osita Nnamani Ogbu, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja, at a press briefing to launch the Corruption Perception Index result for the year.

He said although the result showed a significant improvement as against the 2.2, representing 22 per cent in the year 2007, it also indicated the level of insincerity that characterized the crusade against corruption in the country by those in government who wield the instruments for the war.

Said he: “There is no doubt that Nigeria has recorded significant improvements in terms of her previous scores. However, it goes without saying that 27 per cent is not a pass mark.”
Stating that being at 73 per cent down on the index was intolerably high, Ogbu attributed the intolerable degree of corruption in the country to the government’s unwillingness to close the gaps that exist in its anti-corruption programme and do the right things.

“A number of gaps still exist in the anti-corruption programme of the government. Corruption is best fought by building an integrity system. This means building some insitu parapets for transparency and accountability into the structures of governance. We have to move away from a system which is top down.”

One in which an autocratic elite give orders which must be followed by those down the line to a system of horizontal accountability, one in which power is dispersed, where none has a monopoly, and where each is separately accountable,” he stated.

Ogbu also identified some of the gaps in the anti-corruption programme of government as lack of national anti-corruption strategy, lack of access to information law, lack of a law for public access to assets declarations and lack of independence of the anti-corruption agencies. Others were lack of independent election management body, lack of whistleblowers protection law, lack of virile, apolitical, professional and accountable public service and lack of independent, impartial and incorruptible judiciary.

He pointed out that most of these desiderata were part of the preventive measures prescribed by the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Convention of the African Union which, Nigeria, having ratified, was under obligation to put in place the preventive measures prescribed by the Conventions.

In this year’s CPI, Ogbu said 180 countries were surveyed, which revealed that Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden shared the highest score at 9.3, representing 93 per cent, followed immediately by Singapore at 9.2, representing 92 per cent. He added that bringing from the rear, was Somalia at 1.0, slightly trailing Iraq and Myanmar at 1.2 and Haiti at 1.4.