2025 GDI: Nigeria faces high, critical risk of corruption in Defence, Security sectors — Report

The 2025 Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI), released on Thursday by Transparency International Defence and Security in collaboration with the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International Nigeria, revealed that Nigeria faces a high to critical risk of corruption in its defence and security sectors.

According to a statement from Transparency International Defence and Security, issued in collaboration with CISLAC/TI-Nigeria and signed by its Executive Director, Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, the groups lamented that widespread violence, including insurgency in the North-East, banditry in the North-West, and farmer–herder conflict in the Middle Belt, continues to challenge state authority and the effectiveness of public institutions in Nigeria.

While acknowledging that Nigeria remains a key regional security actor and a major recipient of international security assistance, the report stated that the country’s “defence governance reforms have advanced unevenly.

“Civilian oversight of the armed forces is constrained by weak enforcement, outdated and contradictory legal provisions, inadequate technical capacity, restricted transparency, and recurring allegations of human rights violations during security operations. Although incremental initiatives point to a formal commitment to reform, structural weaknesses persist, particularly in defence procurement, financial management, and operational accountability.

“This combination of insecurity, opaque governance, and weak oversight directly informs the defence integrity risks captured in the Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI). Corruption risks remain deeply embedded across Nigeria’s defence sector, characterised by weak short- and long-term oversight from the defence committees and limited engagement from internal and external audit bodies.

“Financial scrutiny is especially fragile, with major gaps in defence spending transparency, secret expenditures, and military-owned enterprises. Although anti-bribery sanctions exist in law, enforcement is uneven, personnel processes lack objectivity, and operational risk management and procurement practices remain weak despite a legal framework that recognises corruption risks.”

In his remarks, the Director of Transparency International Defence and Security, Dr Francesca Grandi, said: “Of the 17 countries we assessed, not one has military doctrine that treats corruption as an operational risk. That is a critical gap. When troops deploy without anti-corruption safeguards, the consequences are paid by the civilians they are supposed to protect, through extortion, abuse, and the erosion of local trust that insurgencies exploit. Governments and their partners cannot continue treating this as a second-order problem. It is a protection failure, and rising defence budgets will compound it.”

Key findings in Nigeria’s GDI 2025 rating show: Overall risk – Very High; Financial risk – 16/100 (Critical), Band “F”; Operational risk – 12/100 (Critical), Band “F”; Procurement risk – 23/100 (Very High), Band “E”; Personnel risk – 50/100 (Moderate), Band “C”; and Political risk – 37/100 (High), Band “D”.

Rafsanjani explained that the 2025 GDI assesses and scores over 17 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, across five risk areas: financial, operational, personnel, political, and procurement, before assigning an overall score.

“Despite robust formal powers, defence oversight remains uneven and reactive, sustaining moderate corruption risks. The National Assembly has formal authority to scrutinise defence policy and spending through hearings, summons of defence officials, and approval of the defence budget, supported by defence committees in both chambers.

“The Auditor-General is constitutionally mandated to audit defence expenditure and report to Parliament, providing a formal, though limited in practice, external check on defence finances. In practice, however, these mechanisms are weakened by structural and capacity constraints.

“Oversight effectiveness is limited by inadequate defence-sector expertise among legislators, frequent committee turnover, conflicts of interest, and patronage-driven appointments.

“Audit scrutiny is further undermined by persistent delays in the publication of Auditor-General reports, outdated legal provisions, weak follow-up on findings, and chronic under-resourcing of the audit office. As a result, Parliament struggles to exercise sustained, proactive oversight over defence policy and spending, reinforcing high corruption risks across the sector.

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“Financial risks: Financial transparency in Nigeria’s defence sector presents critical corruption risks. Large portions of defence and security spending are shielded from public scrutiny through extensive use of classification, security votes, and off-budget mechanisms. Actual expenditure data are rarely published, and defence-linked commercial enterprises operate with minimal disclosure or audit visibility.

“Access-to-information laws exist but are routinely overridden by broad security exemptions and conflicting secrecy legislation, leaving citizens, civil society, and the media with little practical access to defence financial information. Within this high-risk environment, formal transparency mechanisms do exist but remain insufficient to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

“Nigeria publishes its defence budget and submits it to the National Assembly broadly within constitutional timelines, with aggregate allocations disclosed. Approved budgets are publicly accessible, and civil society platforms help interpret published figures. However, these disclosures focus on planned allocations rather than actual spending, while supplementary budgets and classified expenditures receive limited scrutiny.

“Personnel risks: Nigeria’s military personnel system shows active but uneven disciplinary enforcement. Between 2019 and 2023, hundreds of personnel have faced court-martial, including senior officers convicted for abuse of office and procurement-related offences, while more routine cases, such as the dismissal of soldiers for theft at the Dangote Refinery, continue to occur.

“At the same time, concerns persist around personnel transparency and payroll integrity, including continued parliamentary scrutiny of military participation in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

“Within this context, Nigeria’s personnel ethics framework presents moderate corruption risks overall. Formal disciplinary mechanisms are in place and occasionally enforced across ranks, with documented investigations, court-martials, dismissals, and convictions for corruption and misconduct. Codes of conduct apply to military and civilian personnel, and asset declaration requirements exist.

“However, significant weaknesses persist. Despite these requirements and various directives, compliance with asset declaration remains alarmingly low. Whistleblowing is high risk, as protections are policy-based, poorly trusted, and weakened by secrecy norms and fear of retaliation. Transparency around personnel numbers is limited, with ongoing concerns about ghost workers, while appointment and promotion processes, especially at senior levels, remain opaque and vulnerable to patronage. Anti-corruption training occurs but is irregular, leaving overall corruption risks at a moderate level despite formal safeguards.

“Operations represent the weakest area of Nigeria’s defence governance and present critical corruption risks. Although corruption is widely acknowledged as undermining military effectiveness, there is no explicit operational doctrine or framework that treats corruption as a strategic risk in planning, deployment, or command practice. Anti-corruption considerations are not clearly integrated into forward operational planning, and there is no evidence that commanders consistently apply corruption-risk awareness in the field.”

The group also noted that training on corruption for commanders is limited, despite repeated cases of procurement corruption, diversion of operational funds, and substandard equipment directly affecting troop safety. Monitoring of corruption risks during operations is irregular, lacks specialised expertise, and is not guided by defence-specific procedures, while reports remain opaque.

“There are no dedicated guidelines addressing corruption risks in contracting during deployments or peacekeeping, and oversight of private military contractors and external security providers is minimal. These problems leave Nigeria’s defence operations highly exposed to corruption, directly undermining operational effectiveness and integrity.

“Since 2020, major defence purchases linked to operations against Boko Haram, banditry, and other internal threats have been conducted with limited public disclosure, reinforcing long-standing secrecy around military spending.

“Procurement risks: Defence procurement in Nigeria presents very high corruption risks, characterised mainly by pervasive secrecy, extensive legal exemptions, and weak external scrutiny. While procurement is formally governed by the Public Procurement Act (2007) and integrated into Ministry of Defence planning, most defence acquisitions are exempted on national security grounds and treated as classified. Links between procurement decisions and defence strategy are not publicly disclosed.

“The procurement cycle is largely opaque, from needs assessment through contract execution and asset disposal, and potential purchases are rarely made public in advance. Open competition is uncommon, with direct sourcing widely enabled by statutory exemptions, particularly during counter-insurgency operations.

“Oversight bodies, including parliamentary committees, the Bureau of Public Procurement, audit institutions, and anti-corruption agencies, exist in law but face restricted access to information, limited transparency, and weak enforcement capacity in practice. At the same time, Nigeria has established formal legal recognition of procurement-related corruption risks and compliance mechanisms.

“The Public Procurement Act criminalises procurement fraud, provides for supplier sanctions, and mandates observer participation by civil society and professional bodies. However, these safeguards remain largely de jure rather than de facto: broad defence exemptions, pervasive secrecy, and limited audit enforcement mean that procurement controls function largely on paper, leaving corruption risks in defence procurement among the highest across the sector.”

On oversight, transparency, and civic space, the 2025 GDI “finds significant shortcomings in the oversight of defence institutions, financial and procurement transparency, and the protection and inclusion of civic space. While oversight institutions formally exist across most of the 17 countries assessed, including Nigeria, they often function with limited authority. Executive dominance frequently constrains parliamentary oversight of defence institutions, while restricted access to information prevents legislatures and audit bodies from properly scrutinising defence spending and activities.

“Severely restricted civic space further limits oversight capacity. About 76 per cent of assessed countries have very weak or no civic space at all, meaning civil society is largely shut out of defence policy discussions and lacks the access to information needed to scrutinise budgets and hold defence institutions to account.

“Without stronger oversight, greater transparency, and meaningful space for civil society engagement, corruption in the defence sector will continue to undermine security and divert public resources away from those who need them most.”