From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Nigeria has dropped by five places in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International (TI), yesterday.
It is Nigeria’s second consecutive year of decline in TI’s rating.
The CPI aggregates data from eight different sources that provide perceptions by country experts and business people on the level of corruption in the public sector. The index indicates the perception of corruption in Nigeria even though it does not show specific incidences.
In the latest report, CPI rated Nigeria, which scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 index, as the second most corrupt country in West Africa, after Guinea.
In the 2020 index, Nigeria had scored 25 out of 100 points, ranking 149 out of the 180 countries surveyed. This means Nigeria dropped five places from 149 to 154.
“The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index released by Transparency International today shows corruption is on the increase in Nigeria.
“The country scored 24 out of 100 points in the #CPI2021, which is one point less compared to the score of 2020,” the organisation tweeted on its official Twitter handle @TransparencITng, yesterday.
This report came as Nigeria battles with rising nationwide insecurity, high unemployment rate and damning revelations around public finance management by the auditor general and investigative journalists, amongst others.
Reacting, to the report, the Civil Society Advocacy Legislative Centre (CISLAC) said the decline could signify that Nigeria may not have improved in the fight against corruption.
Its Executive Director, Auwal Musa, declared the index was completely impartial, objective and globally acknowledged as the most widely used cross-country parameter for measuring competition.
According to Musa, factors that could be responsible for Nigeria’s decline in the ratings may 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.