Bribery: UN knocks FG’s anti-corruption agenda

Country Representative, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Oliver Stolpe, has said that the Federal Government’s anti-corruption agenda is yet to affect the bribe-seeking behaviour in offices.

Though he observed that the prevalence of administrative, mostly low-value, bribery decreased under the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Stolpe was reacting to the report of the second survey on corruption launched yesterday by the Federal Government following the International Day of Corruption held last Wednesday.

He expressed hope that the survey would make an important contribution in the fight against corruption in terms of further enhancing its effectiveness and benefits for the people.

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in partnership with the UNODC, with the support of the United Kingdom (UK) yesterday released the survey at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The survey assessed the likelihood of citizens being approached for the payment of bribes as well as the frequency of such requests and actual payments.

It is aimed at providing insight into citizens’ attitudes towards corruption, their readiness to shun bribery requests and to report corruption incidents. It also provides data on bribery and nepotism in public sector recruitment as well as the issue of vote buying.

According to the survey, 30 per cent of citizens, who had contact with a public official in the 12 months prior to the 2019 survey, were asked to bribe a public official.

This means that although still relatively high, the prevalence of bribery in Nigeria has undergone a statistically significant decrease since 2016, when it stood at 32.3 per cent.

The survey further revealed that a smaller percentage of Nigerians that had contact with public officials paid bribes or were asked to pay bribes, in 2019 than in 2016.

It stated that those who did pay bribes continued to do so quite frequently; in 2019, Nigerians gave an average of six bribes in the 12 months prior to the survey, which amounts to an average of 5.8 bribes by each person in 2016.