A Throwback on “Corruption in Nigeria: how effective is the corruption perception index in highlighting the economic Malaise?”

This post has been in my draft for nearly a full year now, but then again it has been resuscitated following the address of HE Peter Obi, presidential candidate in Nigeria’s forthcoming elections.

Among his stated four pillars/ planks if he wins and becomes commander in chief, are, especially in the third pillar:

“…our governance priorities is to “Restructure the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms to entrench the rule of law, aggressively fight corruption, reduce cost of governance, and establish an honest and efficient civil service”. Reducing the cost of governance in Nigeria is an effective way to fight institutional corruption...”

Considering that the core of his message was on tackling corruption in the country, I thought it worthwhile to reflect on this old piece “Corruption in Nigeria: how effective is the corruption perception index in highlighting the economic malaise?”

In that 2005 article, I opined that “among the numerous problems facing Nigeria in 21st century is the bad image, which is rightly or wrongly portrayed by the Corruption Perception Indices orchestrated under the framework of Berlin-based Transparency International….”

Citing the 1999 TI annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranked 99 countries in order of their perceived levels of corruption with number one being the least corrupt, and Nigeria being place at number 98 — only one rank above its neighbour, Cameroon — I moved on to explore the pattern 4 years on in 2003.

Typically, a score of less than 5 out of a clean score of 10 reflects perceived levels of corruption among politicians and public officials, while scores of less than 3 out of 10 indicates a high level of corruption. With an abysmal score of 1.3, therefore, Nigeria fits the bill of a highly corrupt country that needs a miracle in order to return its economy to a more governable status.

Looking at the October 2003 update, I noted that Nigeria ranked 132 — only one rank above Bangladesh–even though the number of countries in the that poll had increased to 133 countries.

My paper argued, however, that the CPI is not a sufficient indicator of the “level of corruption” in developing countries such as Nigeria. I, therefore, adopted a “more holistic approach” to unmask the entrenched nature of corruption against the background that “more often than not,” only one perspective is reflected in the CPI.

Bribery is argued to be another dimension to take into account when designing the CPI, therefore, making it imperative to incorporate the Bribe Payers Index into the CPI calculus in order to present a more holistic and hence more credible measure of corruption levels in countries especially Nigeria.

……

Madichie, N. 2005. Corruption in Nigeria: how effective is the corruption perception index in highlighting the economic Malaise? World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 2 (3-4), 320-335.