Corruption: Presidency blames Nigerians for Transparency’s poor ranking

Following the release of Nigeria's poor performance on the corruption ranking by Transparency International, the presidency has blamed the result on the citizens.

The Transparency Internation scored Nigeria 25 out of 100 and the country as the second most corrupt nation in West Africa in the 2020 Corruption Perception Index.

Nigeria was also ranked 149 out of 180 countries.

With several Nigerians not surprised at the statistics released, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu faulted the citizens barely two days after the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed discredited the report.

Speaking on Channels Television on Monday, Shehu indicated that the report is not a reflection of the Buhari-led administration but the corruption of Nigerians.

“I’ll tell you that this one by TI is not a judgment on Buhari or his administration or its war against corruption. I will tell you that this one is a judgment on Nigerians because if you look at the indices they used at arriving at these conclusions, they used eight indices, six of which showed Nigeria as being more or less Nigeria in the same position.

“The two that they dwelled on, that caused this backslide, are essentially Nigerian problems. They’re talking about the political culture of this country, vote-buying, thuggery. Is it Buhari that is a thug? We’re not doing thuggery.

“And when they talk about the justice sector, they are talking about perceived corruption in the judiciary. These perceptions are essentially not correct. Yes, there are issues in that sector but so many changes are going on in that sector wouldn’t it have been nice if they acknowledged it so that you encourage those judicial officers that are upright, and then the system gets getting better," he said.

However, Punchng.com reported that Transparency derived its information from 13 data sources that capture the assessment of experts and business executives on some corrupt behaviours in the public sector including bribery, diversion of public funds, use of public office for private gain, and nepotism in the civil service.