14th November, 2012
The perception of Nigeria’s government seems to have crashed further, with most Nigerians rating their country’s leadership as the second most corrupt in the world, a Gallup poll just made public has revealed.
Gallup, in its first-ever report on “Global States of Mind: New Metrics for World Leaders.”, said 94 percent of Nigerians believe there is widespread corruption in government.
The poll shows that in the world, only Kenyans believe their government is more corrupt. About 96 percent of Kenyans said there is widespread corruption in their government while only five percent of Singaporeans said their government is corrupt.
Singaporeans believe their country is the least corrupt in the world. Gallup said last year’s revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt where GDP was rising, shows that world leaders need more than just GDP and other traditional economic metrics to run their countries. “Economic data are becoming less and less valuable because they tend to be outdated by the time they are made available. More significantly, GDP is less valuable because leaders now need to know much more than what people are spending — they need to know what they are thinking; GDP isn’t enough if you are watching for instability,” said Jim Clifton, Gallup Chairman and CEO.
“All institutes worldwide knew GDP was rising in Tunisia and Egypt. They knew what 11 million Tunisians and 80 million Egyptians were buying and selling — but they didn’t know what they were thinking,” Clifton added.
Clifton said GDP isn’t enough if leaders are trying to figure out levels of hunger, hopelessness, or suffering, adding that the United Nations did not see those revolutions coming, neither did the World Economic Forum (WEF), nor the World Bank.
“The U.S. spends tens of billions on intelligence— and it missed those revolutions too,” Clifton said. Gallup’s World Poll spans more than 150 countries, territories, and areas, annually capturing what more than 98% of the world’s adult population is thinking on topics from basic needs to job creation. Gallup’s World Poll data set now includes more than 1 million interviews conducted since the research initiative started in 2005. Respondents were asked questions on law and order, food and shelter, institutions and infrastructure, good jobs, wellbeing, brain drain and quality GDP growth.
—Simon Ateba