Despite the efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in the fight against corruption, the country was still bleeding from corruption, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ observed.
The group said that the current administration has made considerable effort directed towards addressing corruption such as the signing on of the Open Government Partnership, the establishment of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, PACAC, and designing a national anti-corruption strategy currently prosecuting high profile corruption cases.
In his address at a Policy Dialogue in Abuja, Rev.David Ugolor, Executive Director of ANEEJ, noted that, “Despite these successes, Nigeria has not fared better in the corruption perception index released annually by Transparency International.
“Nigeria scored 27 points out of 100 on the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International, moving up to 144th out of 148 countries ranked.”
Ugolor represented by the deputy executive director of the group, said, “The purpose of this policy dialogue, therefore, is to provide opportunity for stakeholders to among other things; review progress made by the current administration in the fight against corruption, review major challenges/obstacles to Nigeria’s anti graft efforts and proffer solutions, (and) set an anti-corruption agenda for the second term of President Buhari’s government.
“This dialogue is one of our activities in the Transparency and Accountability in the recovery and Management of Looted Assets, MANTRA, project which is a sub-sect of the Anti-Corruption in Nigeria, ACORN, programme being supported by the British Department for International Development, DFID.”
Speaking in an interview with Vanguard, Atakpu said, “We have invited policy makers, all stakeholders to come together to review efforts so far on anti corruption, what we have been doing under Buhari administration, now that he has been re-elected, and one of his priority is war against corruption, so where are we with that war as of today and then in the next four years, where do we want to see ourselves in the war against corruption.
“Nigeria is currently bleeding from corruption, there is wide spread poverty everywhere, over 80 percent of Nigerians are living in poverty. In fact about 60 percent living below absolute poverty line that is the poorest of the poor.”
