As seen on Punch Newspaper. THE global corruption watchdog, Transparency International, has ranked Nigeria as the 35th most corrupt nation in the world.
The Corruption Perception Index 2012
released on Wednesday revealed that Nigeria scored 27 out of a maximum
100 marks to clinch the 139th position out of the 176 countries surveyed
for the report.
Nigeria, sharing the position with
Azerbaijan, Kenya, Nepal and Pakistan, is said to have remained
entrenched in corruption without making much progress to fight the
menace.
While countries such as Togo, Mali,
Niger and Benin fared better, experts decried Nigeria’s poor performance
in stamping corruption out.
Nigeria placed 143rd in the 2011 rankings, making it the 39th most corrupt country but experts said it was difficult to determine whether the country had improved in the ranking this year.
Nigeria placed 143rd in the 2011 rankings, making it the 39th most corrupt country but experts said it was difficult to determine whether the country had improved in the ranking this year.
This, they said, was because 182, six more than this year’s, were ranked in 2011.
The CPI 2012 confirmed recent media
reports that President Goodluck Jonathan lied to the citizens when he
claimed in his Independence day broadcast on October 1 that Nigeria was
rated second after the United States by TI. TI, of course, denied
issuing such a report.
Since 1995 TI has been publishing the
CPI annually, ranking countries by their perceived levels of corruption,
as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The CPI
generally defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private
benefit.”
Reacting to the country’s new rating on
the corruption scale, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, on
Wednesday said the President could not be blamed for the latest
corruption ranking of the country.
He said such reports were based on the comments of Nigerians who were always eager to tell the world how bad the country is.
He regretted that such aggregate of
people’s perceptions did not recognise the various efforts being put in
place by the government to fight corruption.
“The President does not sit in court to
imprison people. There are institutions set up to do such. We do not
follow the line in this country. We believe that if a market is not
working in a village or there is an accident, the President is
responsible,” he said.
According to TI, the 2012 index ranks
176 countries/territories by their perceived levels of public sector
corruption. The index draws on 13 surveys covering expert assessments
and surveys of business people.
The body particularly criticised
Jonathan for paying lip service to anti-graft war and not showing enough
drive to fight corruption, especially corruption involving past and
current actors in his administration.
The president had also been carpeted for his reluctance in promoting transparency by failing to publicly declare his assets.
Ranging from the monumental fuel subsidy
scam to the massive corruption uncovered in pension administration as
well as the scams at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the
Bureau of Public Enterprises, many Nigerians have already rated the
Jonathan-led administration very low in the fight against corruption.
Government officials, including some of
President Jonathan’s associates have been named in the brazen theft of
public funds. Sons of both a past and incumbent national chairmen of the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party were indicted and are currently
undergoing trial for robbing the country of several billions of naira
under the fuel subsidy regime.
On Monday, the country’s most widely read newspaper, The PUNCH, ran a front page comment denouncing the management of the country’s resources by the Jonathan administration.
Appalled by the approval for the
construction of N2.2bn banqueting hall for entertaining the President’s
guests at the Villa, the paper’s editorial said, “Jonathan government
has continuously demonstrated that the interest of the larger Nigerian
citizens is not its priority and that profligacy is its cardinal
principle.
“There are many depressing examples. In
the 2011 budget, N18bn went for the maintenance of presidential planes,
which could provide decent accommodation for 18 million people going by
the UN-Habitat estimates. In the 2012 budget, it set aside N1.9bn for
the purchase of an additional aircraft for the already bloated
Presidential fleet and N1.5bn for guest houses for some senior
lawmakers. This is happening in a country where a prized possession for
many is a generator.”
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