The NBS/UNODC report on corruption

IN a damning submission, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that about N400 billion is spent on bribes annually in Nigeria. In its Corruption in Nigeria, Bribery: Public Experience and Response (2017 Survey), the bureau claimed that this was a total estimate of bribes paid to public officials in Nigeria in the 12 months prior to the survey conducted in April/May 2016 in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This sum is equivalent to 39 per cent of the combined federal and state education budgets in 2016 and, according to the NBS, bribe-payers in Nigeria spent one-eighth of their salaries on bribes within this period. The survey was conducted as part of a technical assistance project on corruption which was funded by the European Union (Support to Anti-Corruption in Nigeria) and implemented by the NBS, in partnership with UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Indeed, the NBS research shows that corruption is getting worse and is even being lionised among Nigerian public officials, as against the public belief that the current administration has succeeded in largely reining in that major threat to governance in the country. The NBS survey and its outcome are indeed very worrisome. What this means is that corruption is winning the war in Nigeria and government’s effort at curbing it is at best tenuous and unproductive. Perhaps more worrisome is that, in spite of the advertised war against this social ill which has been held to be a major cancer nibbling at the future of Nigeria, governmental efforts have not succeeded in getting public officials to desist from the act.

If there is any area where this government has courted the people’s kudos most, it is the advertised war on corruption. In the last two years since the Muhammadu Buhari government came into being, it has regaled the country and even the international community with stories of its bold moves to curtail the spread of corruption. Largely in the media, government has inundated Nigerians, through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), with its efforts at investigating and shaming high-profile persons, especially in the preceding administration, who were alleged to have soiled their hands with filthy lucre. This effort by a government said to loath corruption with the totality of its being has drawn accolades from the people.

To now imagine that monumental corruption is ongoing right under the nose of such a government is a disincentive, a let-down and a cause for worry for Nigerians. What the NBS finding  shows is that corruption is either being tenuously fought in the country or the wrong approach is being deployed, with the result that the few advertised cases are merely superficial. Many people have argued that what the government is doing in its acclaimed fight on corruption is merely scraping the surface, while leaving the bulk of the corruption substance unattended to. Many others have said that rather than fighting corruption, what the government is actually doing is fighting its perceived enemies who are branded as corrupt people. They argue, for instance, that seldom has the government paraded and prosecuted anyone in the current government alleged to be involved in corruptive tendencies. Virtually all the ongoing cases of corruption have one thing or the other to do with those who held offices before the current administration, especially officials of the immediate past government.

What is not in doubt is that there are no anti-corruption institutions in the country which the current government is reinforcing. Thus, because there are no structural foundations for the anti-corruption fight, it becomes very easy for government to play to the gallery. Strong institutions are needed to combat corruption and anything else is bound to be peremptory and fleeting. The nation must however not lose track of the fact that corruption is a phenomenon that many countries of the world are battling at institutional levels. What makes the Nigerian case unique is that there is so much hypocritical allegiance to fighting corruption while the war is fought in the most corrupt of manners.

Rather than acknowledge that corruption in action aids corruption in deed, government has rigorously focused on the corruption of the past while paying lip service to the corruption of the present, which is rumoured to be more vicious. The result is that while corruption has receded from the public glare and there is some kind of circumspection in public display of ill-gotten wealth, it is thriving in government offices and parastatal agencies in the most audacious manner. The brazenness of corruption in these places makes those who interface with it to scoff at governmental display of an anti-graft war and to conclude that it is at best a sham.

We urge the government to be more sincere and resolute in its fight against corruption. Doing this will entail shedding the toga of hypocrisy and making a public example of the rot within. Less emphasis should also be placed on the glitz of public acclamation of the fight while efforts should be geared towards ensuring the conviction of malefactors.