BY Chinedu Asadu
The federal government has described as baseless, Nigeria’s poor ranking in Transparency International’s (TI) latest corruption perception index .
In the 2019 index published on Thursday, TI ranked Nigeria 146 out of the 180 countries considered, with 26 out of 100 points.
The score is lower than Nigeria’s rating in 2018 when the country scored 148, four places up from the 144 it was ranked in 2017.
TI later cited selective prosecution and attack on the media and whsitleblowers exposing corruption as some of the factors that led to Nigeria’s poor rating.
However, speaking when he featured on a Channels TV programme,
Abubakar Malami, minister of justice and attorney-general of the federation (AGF), said the federal government has been “doing more work” regarding the fight against corruption.
He said current realities do not support Nigeria’s ranking by the international organisation.
“In terms of the fight against corruption, we have been doing more, we have done more and we will continue to do more out of inherent conviction and desire on our part to fight against corruption devoid of any extraneous considerations relating to the rating by Transparency International,” he said.
“Our resolve to fight corruption is inherent and indeed devoid of any extraneous considerations, we will continue to do more and we will double efforts.”
Malami added that Nigeria has done more work in terms of legislation, enforcement and recovery of looted assets, and has been “extraordinary” in terms of political goodwill.
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