A report presented by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) at a town hall meeting in Abuja on Wednesday has named Nigeria Police Force (NPF), power sector, education, judiciary and health ministry as topmost ranking corrupt institutions in Nigeria.
The report also revealed that despite efforts by the current administration at the federal level since 2015, 41 per cent of respondents believed that corruption would either increase or remain the same while one-third were outright pessimistic, believing that there would be an increase in corruption level in the country.
Despite the order of ranking, judicial officers collected the highest amount of bribes in absolute terms.
For every 100 encounters that Nigerians have with policemen, there is 63 per cent chance that bribe would be demanded while 54 per cent of them actually paid bribe.
SERAP’s Deputy Director Kolawole Oluwadare who presented the report explained that the ranking was established through a survey conducted across the six geopolitical zones in the country, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
“A bribe is paid in 54 per cent of interactions with the Police.
“In fact, there is a 63 per cent probability that an average Nigerian would be asked to pay a bribe each time he or she interacted with the Police. That is almost two out of three.
“The likelihood of bribery in the power sector stood at 49 per cent, while the chances of encountering bribery at the judiciary, education and health services stood at 27 per cent, 25 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively.”
In the power sector, 35 per cent of respondents believed that giving bribe to a staff of the sector is the only way they can access good power supply.
“51 per cent of the individuals that paid bribes to the Police and 35 per cent to the power sector believed this was the only way to access the services sought from the institutions.”
The report read: “Several Nigerians have to pay a bribe to access police, judiciary, power, education and health services.
“The average amount of bribe paid by the respondents was highest among those who paid to the judiciary at about N108,000 (US$298).
“All the other institutions ranked lower on this variable with N12,253 and N11,566 reportedly paid to the police and education sectors, and N6,462 and N5,143 paid for health and power services, respectively,” the report noted.
“Corruption is still a key concern in the country with 70 per cent of Nigerians describing the level of corruption as high and in the same measure, stating that corruption levels either increased or remained the same in the last five years.
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“From the analysis of the anti-corruption legal and institutional framework in Nigeria, the following cross-cutting issues emerged: there is lack of political goodwill to consistently enforce the different anti-corruption laws; inadequate funding for the various anti-corruption agencies; weak public support and/or ownership of anti-corruption initiatives; poor clarity of roles between various anti-corruption agencies; and public perceptions of politicisation of corruption arrests and prosecutions.
“Bribery experiences were interrogated and recorded in the key sectors of education, health, the police, judiciary and power. Data analysis was conducted under five different and interrelated variables.
“The police were the most adversely ranked on this indicator. For every 100 police interactions reported by the respondents, there was a bribe paid in 54 interactions.
“The prevalence levels stood at 37 per cent in the power sector and 18 per cent in education,17.7 per cent in the judiciary and 14 per cent in the health sector.
“The ranking of the education sector and the judiciary was less adverse with 16 per cent perceiving bribery as the main avenue of accessing services in the institutions, and health services recording 13 per cent.
“The police and judiciary had the largest proportion of total bribes paid at 33 per cent and 31 per cent respectively.
“Bribes paid for education, power and health services accounted for 19 per cent, 10.9 and 5 per cent, respectively, of all bribes reported.
“Perceptions on corruption trends in Nigeria show almost 70 per cent of the respondents perceived the current level of corruption as high compared to 15.5 per cent that felt it was low.
“70 per cent of the respondents said corruption levels either increased or remained the same in the last five years.
“Only a quarter of the respondents felt corruption reduced in this period.
“Additionally, about a quarter of the respondents (24.9 per cent) believed the current anti-corruption efforts are not comprehensive enough. The poor state of the economy was also seen as a driving factor to increased corruption at 17.2 per cent.
“Respondents identified poor coordination among the different state players as a key obstacle at 18.4 per cent.
Lack of political will from the government and weak public support were ranked second at 12 per cent.”