Jumoke Olasunkanmi
Nigeria has made significant progress in the fight against corruption, as revealed in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by Transparency International (TI) on Tuesday, moving five places up to rank 145 out of 180 countries assessed.
Apart from moving five places up from 150th position, the country also gained one point to score 25 out of 100 in the 2023 CPI results.
The CPI measures the perceived level of corruption in the public sector of each country, using a scale of zero to 100, where zero signifies high corruption and 100 indicates a very clean system.
“Small fluctuations or changes in a country’s CPI score are not usually significant,” says the TI, a Berlin-based non-profit and non-governmental organisation concerned with ending corruption in the countries and territories of the world.
While Nigeria’s improvement is noteworthy, it still falls below the Sub-Saharan African average of 33 points.
Seychelles leads the region with a CPI score of 71, followed by Cabo Verde (64) and Botswana (59).
On the other hand, Equatorial Guinea (17), South Sudan (13), and Somalia (11) rank the lowest with no signs of improvement.
Nigeria shares its 145th position with Liberia, Madagascar, and Mozambique.
The 2023 CPI underscores the challenges faced by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from bribery and extortion to political interference in justice systems.
“cases of corruption and related challenges in justice system in the region range from reports of bribery to extortion and political interference in justice systems of countries like Nigeria (25), to the dismissal and imprisonment of magistrates accused of corruption in Burundi (20), and all the way to the denial of justices for victims of human rights violations in the democratic Republic of Congo (20).
“These examples underscore the justice system’s crucial role in safeguatding basic human rights and social equity,” Paul Banoba, Robert Mwanyumba and Samuel Kaninda, Regional Advisors for Africa, Transparency International wrote.
Nigeria’s improved ranking follows its advancement in the 2022 CPI, where it moved up to 150th place. Despite maintaining its previous score of 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 assessment, the country moved up four places in the rankings.
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