The government said the rating does not truly reflect the great strides by the country in its fight against corruption.
The federal government said having analysed the 2020 TI-CPI rating for Nigeria, it was interrogating a number of issues and discrepancies that have been observed in the rating process, including some data sources in which Nigeria’s scores have remained flat over the past ten years, reflecting no improvement, decline or fluctuation.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who made the observation in a statement however, assured that the country’s anti-corruption agenda, which had placed great emphasis on corruption prevention measures and the building of integrity systems, remains on course.
According to the Minister, the implementation of the various reforms, especially in the Ease of Doing Business, is expected to yield positive outcomes in the country’s corruption perception and other relevant assessments in the next 12 to 24 months.
The Minister also explained that there were missing assessments for Nigeria in the data entries where the country has performed well in previous CPI calculations, like the African Development Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment.
He said in addition to placing more emphasis on corruption prevention measures and building of integrity systems, high profile corruption cases are currently under investigation and prosecution.
The Minister said the emphasis on preventive mechanisms is in response to various local and international reviews and evaluation that Nigeria has gone through, including those from the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and even from the TI-CPI
