29th January, 2020
Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, described the Transparency International’s (TI) latest corruption perception index which ranked Nigeria low on corruption as “baseless” but that was not his response to the poor rating of the country eight years ago when Goodluck Jonathan was in power.
In the latest TI rating, Nigeria was ranked 146 out of the 180 countries that were surveyed worldwide.
By the rating, Nigeria slipped from 144th to 146th position in the corruption perception index, falling by 26 points, a minus of one when compared to its score in 2018.
Reacting to the rating, Lai Mohammed said the federal government is not seeking to impress any organisation with its anti-corruption fight.
“We are not fighting corruption because we want to impress any organisation. We are fighting corruption because we believe that without fighting the menace, the much-sought development will not happen and we have results to show for fighting corruption.”
However, when ex-President Goodluck Jonathan was in power, Mohammed described Nigeria’s low ranking on TI index as proof that Jonathan “is not serious” about fighting corruption.
Nigeria was ranked 35th most corrupt country in the world in 2012, less than two years into the Goodluck Jonathan led administration.
Lai Mohammed, was the spokesman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a major part of the bloc that later metamorphosed into the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Mohammed, in a strongly-worded statement at the time, said the “harvest of corruption scandals’’ under the Jonathan administration was unprecedented in Nigeria’s history and has been attested to by TI.
“According to the latest CPI, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and one of the continent’s biggest economies was not listed among the top 35 least corrupt nations in Africa, even when it was ranked the 35th most corrupt nations in the world.
“It is also instructive that Liberia and Sierra Leone, which Nigeria helped to liberate from the throes of war are now doing much better in fighting corruption than the country (Nigeria), just like much smaller and less-endowed nations like Niger, Gambia, Burkina Faso, and Mali are better rated.
“In all of these and more, the administration has shown an amazing lack of political will in investigating the scams and prosecuting perpetrators. “Worst still, key administrative officials have shown from their careless comments that they either do not understand what it means to fight corruption or they are just trivialising it.
“President Jonathan must wake from his slumber and face the reality that corruption is fast eating deep into the soul of Nigeria, having already decimated the body. He must stop playing the ostrich and lead the way in the fight against corruption before it consumes the country.”