CSOs urge Tinubu to urgently design anti-corruption strategy

Piqued by the poor rating of Nigeria in the fight against corruption, a coalition of Civil Society Organization working on anti-corruption issues have urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to as a matter of urgency, design a national anti-corruption strategy to define how he intends to tackle the m nave

The coalition led by the African Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), called on the new administration to strengthen the anti-corruption agencies by appointing a substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The convener of the coalition, Rev David Ugolor while speaking at a one-day national dialogue on anti-corruption, yesterday in Abuja, lamented that the crisis going on in the EFCC was not good for the country’s image.

He said: “The earlier Tinubu’s government put in place a substantive EFCC chairman in line with the Nigerian constitution and EFCC Act, the better for the country. For President Tinubu to move forward, he must have an anti-corruption strategy so as to send a strong signal to the political class

While pointing out that corruption has remained a major challenge that is hindering the growth and development of Nigeria, Ugolor lamented that the country was consistently ranked one of the most corrupt countries or territories in the world as evidenced by several Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reports.

He said: “The 2022 CPI report ranked Nigeria 150 out of 180 countries. Even though the latest ranking was four places higher than the 2021 CPI ranking for the country, Nigeria still scored 24 out of 100 points which was not different from the 2021 CPI score falling back one point compared to the 2020 CPI. This indicates high level of corruption as in the previous reports.”

He noted that according to the UN and the AU, about $148 billion was stolen from Africa annually by political leaders, multinational corporations, the business elite and civil servants with complicity of banking and property industries in Europe, North America and elsewhere.

He stated that an assessment report by ANEEJ on the implementation of anti-corruption commitments in Nigeria, showed that actions need to be taken on several issues adding that laws have been enacted and certain actions need to be taken to drive the implementation.

He added that there were also pending laws that should be enacted to strengthen anti-corruption work in the country saying that the recently adopted national anti-corruption strategy also required action to avoid the shortfalls of the past, and that anti-corruption agencies needed to be strengthened to be able to handle emerging issues.