Executive Director CISLAC, Auwalu Musa Rafsanjani, has said that corruption in the public sector of the country continues to undermine Nigeria’s integrity, citing this as the reason why Nigeria ranked 142nd in latest global anti-corruption index.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE News on Wednesday Rafsanjani said, “The public sector corruption continues to undermine the integrity of this country.”
He added: “Although Transparency International is not measuring the efforts of anti-corruption agencies in Nigeria like EFCC, ICPC, NFIU, and Code of Conduct, it’s basically looking at public sector corruption and collapse of public sector integrity. And that’s what is putting this country in a very negative disposition. This is despite the fact that a lot of efforts are being done by the various anti-corruption agencies.”
Rafsanjani explained that Nigeria’s corruption perception index will not improve until public sector corruption is dealt with.
“When you look at the various public sector, Nigerians are facing daily corruption experiences. So there’s no way your corruption perception index will improve if this real-time corruption are happening in Nigeria. So Transparency International is issuing this report as a wake-up call so that we can look at gaps and block those leakage”, he advised.
Noting the importance of reforming political parties in Nigeria, the Executive Director said:
“We need to reform political parties, we need to install accountability in governance. We need to ensure that civil service is reformed. Because if the political leadership is rotten, it is expected that the civil service, the bureaucracy, they should be able to have integrity. So, if there is a collapse of institutional integrity in the country, that’s a major problem in terms of dealing with the corruption.”
He added: “I am saying that this report is a pointer, and it’s a clarion call that we need to address fundamental issues. We need to do reforms that can actually help to reduce the menace of corruption. We must make sure that people who have looted this country are not rewarded with political appointment or are not being covered. That’s the only way you can begin to reduce instances of these high-profile corruption cases. If you don’t try them, if you don’t investigate them, and they just simply decamp to your party and they are protected, the corruption will increase.”
Rafsanjani went further to call for total reform in all tiers of government, insisting that this will aid the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
“So, when you want to deal with corruption in a country, it’s not just the federal government. Because in Nigeria we have three tiers of government: we have local government, we have state, and we have federal. So, at the federal level, you have some resemblance of a system that could help deal with issues of corruption.
At the state level, I can tell you that 80% of the states you have in Nigeria don’t have even a replication of ICPC or EFCC in their state. Which means that corruption and corrupt practices are just going unchecked. Because they undermine even the basic rules, because even without anti-corruption institutions, there are supposed to be rules and regulations, there are supposed to be financial regulations. But you see, some people just ignore that”, he noted.
He went further to say that the fight against corruption in Nigeria involves everyone, admonishing Nigerians to shun corrupt practices.
“So, if you are dealing with the issue of corruption, it’s not just the federal government; it is also at the local government level, it is also at the state level, and it also involves virtually everyone. Even at the family level, you cannot come and be celebrating crooks, criminals, looters, simply because they come from your ethnic group, or because they come from your religious identity, or they come from your zone or whatever you call it. You cannot be celebrating people who have instilled misery and hardship on Nigeria simply because of ethnic identity or religious identity.
If you are a criminal, you are a criminal. If you commit crime, your name—you have committed crime. Don’t cover up simply because of political consideration or because of those identities that have continued to undermine the effectiveness of governance systems in Nigeria”, he concluded.
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