NIGERIA: Federal Government of Nigeria (FG) has reacted to the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report by Transparency International (TI), in which TI has placed Nigeria as the second most corrupt country in Western Africa after Guinea.
Reacting to the report, spokesman to President Mohammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, described the report as “baseless and sensational.”
Garba added that the recent report is not in any way close to the county’s effort in fighting corruption and is aimed at president Mohammadu Buhari’s regime.
This report is sensational and baseless looking at the attention given by this administration’s fight against corruption, Shehu said.
However, Shehu further stated that the present administration of President Buhari doesn’t deserve anything below applause and thumbs-up from CPI rather than sabotaging the country’s efforts.
The administration of Buhari has done extremely well in tackling corruption in all ramifications. Therefore it requires credits, Shehu said.
Also commenting on the report, Nigeria’s Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed said that the report does not reflect the great strides by the country in its fight against corruption, particularly in the public sector.
Nigeria’s CPI ranking in the recent years
Transparency International (TI) said that the 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has reported that Nigeria has dropped positions in the index as the country scored 24 points out of 100.
Therefore, Nigeria’s ranking of 154 out of 180 countries in the 2021 CPI means a drop of 149 in the 2020 index, hence falling back five places in the current context.
The report also added that, even with the effort put in place by Nigerian federal government in fighting corruption in the country, 131 countries are still placed above them in the ranking.
According to the ranking, Nigeria is the second most corrupt country in West Africa after Guinea that is ranked 150 on the global index.
Despite the Nigerian government’s claims to fight corruption it still doesn’t show any changes in this current report.
It is Nigeria’s second consecutive year of a downward spiral on the TI’s CPI ranking, the country’s score has dropped from 26 in 2019 to 25 in the 2020 assessment, and further to 24 in the latest 2021 record, TI said.
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