Nigeria’s corruption problem runs deep

PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu’s remarks that Qatari investors should report Nigerian officials who solicit bribes from them while doing business in the country to him buttresses the deep-seated corruption afflicting one of Africa’s largest economies. On the final leg of his recent two-day state visit to Qatar, the President said he would grant investors direct access to him to report any official who asked for a bribe. It takes courage for the President to make such an open admission of the sleaze in his country before a global audience. To reap the benefits of his avowal, Tinubu must lead from the front, cleansing the rot from within by his actions and disposition.

Since becoming President, one of Tinubu’s pet projects is to reignite the inflow of foreign direct investment into Nigeria, partly constricted by corruption. At minus $198 million, FDI inflows into Nigeria entered negative territories in 2022, compared to $3.31 billion in 2021, per Statista.

With a private sector background, Tinubu says he will reverse the trend by fighting corruption. In Doha, he said, “I am here to give you the assurance that reforms are going on; forget about whatever you heard in the past. Do not offer a bribe to any of our people…. Whatever the obstacle or problem that some of you might have experienced; it is in the past because there is no obstacle in the future. And I am assuring you, it is free entry and free exit.”

Truly, Nigeria’s past was littered with corruption, which has had a toxic impact on the country’s ease-of-doing business ranking. Out of 180 countries, Nigeria ranked 145 in the Transparency International 2023 Corruption Perception Index with 25 points over 100. This is extremely poor. It is below the sub-Saharan average of 33 points and the global average of 48.4 points.

In that past, the Society for Forensic Accounting and Fraud Prevention calculated Nigeria’s annual losses to corruption at N2.5 trillion in 2020. The Anti-Corruption Agencies of Nigeria said in 2022 that financial crimes cost Nigeria nearly $18 billion annually. The immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, said Nigeria lost $150 billion to stealing in the oil industry in the 10 years to 2015.

Although some citizens have condemned Tinubu for washing Nigeria’s dirty linen in public, Nigeria has a corruption problem. At an anti-corruption summit in London in 2016, the then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was overheard telling the late Queen Elizabeth II: “We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain… Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.” There is no worse international odium than this.

Under Buhari, two former governors were jailed for corruption. Inexplicably, Buhari pardoned them. That government withdrew the case of a third former governor on trial for stealing after he visited the Aso Rock Villa during contest for the Senate Presidency in 2019.

In what Buhari’s deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, described as “grand corruption,” connected officials looted cash from the Central Bank of Nigeria vaults pre-Buhari era. The trial of Sambo Dasuki, President Goodluck Jonathan’s National Security Adviser, and top officials over the alleged theft of $2.1 billion arms fund is in limbo.

Already, Tinubu’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, is on suspension for alleged graft. Her immediate predecessor is also under investigation for a similar offence.

The police, security agencies, judiciary, and ministries, departments and agencies are not left out of accusations of graft.

The President owes Nigeria a debt of rectitude. To make his tenure count, he must punish any whiff of corruption around him. He should adopt the strategy of modern Singapore leader, Lee Kuan Yew, who started the cleansing of the Asian country from his own inner circle.