 Niger drops in latest TI's corruption ranking, and that's because we dropped on the Corruption Perception Index published by Transpiracy International. According to the 2021 ranking released on Tuesday, Niger dropped five places, scoring 24 out of 100 points, ranking 154 out of 180 countries. This is Niger's second consecutive year of a downward spiral on the TI's CPI ranking. The country's court dropped from 26 in 2019 to 25 in the 2020 assessment, and further to 24 in the latest 2021 record. What does this statistics mean for Nigeria? We do have, I guess, joining the conversation, Mark Adeboye, I beg to take that again, Mark Adeboye, he's a public affairs analyst, and it's good to have you join us, Mark Adeboye. Thank you so much for having me. All right, so let's quickly share your thoughts. When you saw this, I mean, statement and ranking that's been put out, how does it make you feel for a country that is strong with a fight against corruption? Well, it didn't really come as a surprise, actually, it came as a surprise. I don't think we are strong on fighting corruption at all. We are not. If we were, the country wouldn't be going down on the scale of a Corruption Perception Index. Consistently, in the last 10 years, Nigeria has not been doing well, so it's just quite unfortunate. But before we even go into that, we should know that the major cause in corruption and all this socioeconomic and political malaise that have been bedeviling the country are also able to corruption. Corruption has put out the short-term influence on every society and every country, and that is why Nigeria has been as it is. But for corruption, many of the African countries will be struggling to catch up with Nigeria in the area of development, but Nigeria is far behind, even in the area of development, whether you talk of infrastructure, education or health, look at countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, even Rwanda. Rwanda now officially the cleanest country in Africa is now moving up in lift and balance in the area of technology, in the area of educational health, and of course they have succeeded in uniting their country in such a way that you are Rwanda, you are not a beauty, you are not a piece. So corruption is a major albatross of Nigeria's malaise, so it's a major issue. And to me having this type of abysmal performance under a governmental promise to fight corruption head on for the past six years plus, for to be having this palace record is quite unfortunate. As in Nigeria I'm not happy, as in Puerto Rico in Nigeria I'm not happy. You know where you go abroad, the people look at you, the airports, the way people perceive you. Because this corruption perception in this is not just about the country, it's about the citizens, where you go out there. And of course that many Nigerians trust one another, whether at home or abroad. So it is almost, it is a cancer that is eaten deep in the families of our society and we must fight it down. And I think at this moment this intercorruption could save and fight, should not be led to the government in law. I think we have a collective responsibility as citizens to do our work the way we should do it. That asking for illegal ratifications, you know, look at what happens in our airports. Even those ones, it beams our light in such a very bad and terrible way to be outside world. People come from America, they come from Canada, they come from Dubai, they come from everywhere. And when they get to our airport, what do they find? What do they see? They see corruption, first hand. And then they begin to record and they post that online all over the world. And we expect a corruption perception index to look at any meter. It's not going to look at any meter. There is indirect corruption and indirect corruption. The indirect funds that are stolen in our paracetals and corporations and government agencies, you know. But the direct ones are the ones that Nigeria has a counter on a daily basis. On the road, with the police. Mr. Adebayo, can you hear us please? We sincerely apologize for the freezing screenings. Can you hear us Mr. Adebayo? Yes, I'm hearing you. Sorry. Please continue. I was talking about indirect and indirect corruption. The direct one is when you encounter security agencies where you are asked to give to drop money at some point. Or even look at the users who are looking for jobs where you apply for a job in any corporation or paracetam. You are asked to bring 1,000, 1,000, 1,000 naira for you to be employed. So the corruption is very deep and pervasive in our society and it's something that unfortunately is affecting our development. Mr. Adebayo, you mentioned and you touched on several points that we were going to go through. Very interesting answers you gave and analysis you've given. But you mentioned the fact that this current administration led by President Muhammad Buhari came into office with a posture of being against corruption and fighting corruption. And yet we still see that Nigeria continues to rise and go up on the corruption perception index. And why is that the case? What are the things that they have failed to do or they are doing to make the situation worse? Well, I want to believe that there is too much political influence on the anti-corruption against, you know, a lot of allegations against our general administration that, you know, you can see that. Well, you can see that there is no sense of dealing with persecution on some alleged corrupt public officials. You know, except we are there as a political interest. We are the government as a political interest in an individual. That's where you see them. We prosecute with gusto, with vitamination, with effectiveness, with official efficiency. So, but where there is no political will or interest, we are the person involved is on the good side of government. You don't see that kind of religion persecution. That's why you can see a corruption case would drag on for 10, 12, 15 years. What are you persecuting? You know, normally you already must have gathered all your evidence before you take somebody to court. So, what are you persecuting for 15 years? So, our, there is no, you cannot see that will, no political will to belay corruption on the part of the government. There is no, you will not see that determination on the part of government. There is no seriousness. So, nobody could have thought that with the buari in power, that corruption will be this terrible. We will remain as terrible as it is today. It's a major disappointment because it's one of the ornamental promises of the president before he came to court about that. You don't see, you don't see that. You know, when Buari came to court, there was this fear factor. Fear factor. Everybody, the civil service, the politicians, everybody was going to crack down on all corrupt politicians, going to crack down on all corrupt agencies, people, everybody until they saw lethargy, they saw lack of commitment, they saw, you know, everybody started when Buari was coming to court. Everybody really started. But you were expecting a massive tsunami against corruption and against corrupt public officials. What? The president came and then covered in his party saying, if you join APC, your sins are forgiven. So, people, they came and bowed in again. You know, police began to collect, you know, tight on the road openly, and all manner of things are happening at the airport and our agencies and power status, and it's quite unfortunate. So, I think the major issue is lack of political will on the part of government to fight corruption. If there is a political will, corruption will fix the lack. And at least by 90 percent it will reduce, even if you cannot eliminate it. Okay. So, let's also talk about the fact that if you look at this report, some people have queried and questioned the fact that the reports by transparency international was quite limiting because it looks at the public sector, the corruption in the public sector, they have actually mentioned some of the perception index that they use, seven witnesses as observed in Nigeria, the issue of damning audit report, security sector corruption, failure to investigate high corruption, and cases, and you also have absence of asset recovery protection of whistleblowers and other key anti-corruption legal frameworks, judicial challenges, corruption in COVID-19 response, Twitter ban and shrinking civil service, I mean civic space and intimidation of human right defenders. Now, these are the indices that has been used, which we would like to share your thoughts on briefly. But also on the other hand, do you think that this, you know, or this ranking is not holistic as it doesn't talk about, you know, the corruption in the private sector? Well, let me take one element first. The issue of whistleblowing. You know, that initiative, if it had been handled well, you know, it would have gone away. Because that is one way to drag, to drag in the citizens. That is one way to encourage citizen participation in the anti-corruption crusade, you understand? So, this whistleblowing, because if I elect a counselor, who three years ago didn't have a bicycle, but suddenly after one year in office, his building, his mansion, his riding, his business can blow whistle on him. You understand? But what did we see? The government itself discouraged whistleblowing. Because the promise is 5% or so of recovered loot to the whistleblower. So Nigerians became very eager to look for who to blow whistle on. This one cannot defend the mis-officer, but what happened? The government began to disappoint them. There was no witness protection regimen to protect the whistleblowers. And of course, the government will recover huge loot, and will not fulfill its own side of the bargain, to give the guy the 5%. So Nigerians became, and of course, there were incidences where the whistleblower is exposed by the anti-corruption agents, personnel, who say, oh, this is the person that... So who was to die? Nobody was to die. So we just said, okay, let the citizens, they rush in and they rush out. So that's why the whistleblowing initiative failed. Now, on the issue of not interrogating the corruption at the level of private sector, corruption is as rife in the private sector as it is in the public sector. The only difference is that you see businesses flourishing because people undo their own person, and private business is better than the undo government business. But in the private sector, there are all manners of corruption in that place too. Including sexual harassment of staff, which to me is one of the worst corruption practices that you can have. But you know, government mirrors the society. That is why anti-corruption, non-government organizations beam their lights more on government because the government mirrors the society and government... At the level of private sector level, the government is also responsible for looking at corruption in those areas. How much are they looking at it? How well are they beam their light on the private sector? The EFCC, CPC, ANCO, NFIU, they are not beam their light too much on the private sector. They should do more about that. They should do more about that. So, it is a... And Nigeria has two. If you... One of the mantras of EFCC is say something, say something, do something. That one came about during the tenure of Waziri, Madame Waziri. So, say something, say something, do something. If you say something, let us say something. Go ahead and do something about it. I don't think we should be afraid of that because corruption is a major cancer on our body quality. And it is not affecting only one sector. It is affecting everybody. We are here, we are today as one of the poorest managed countries in the world of corruption. Mr. Adeba, you mentioned the EFCC a few seconds ago and interestingly the independent corrupt practices and other related offences commission, ICPC, quickly, swiftly, no surprises, I'm sure you'd agree, released a statement titled IPCC statement on the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International. And they are saying that the report is unfair and untenable. Last Transparency International, they are saying, has consistently failed to recognize the efforts of the government to tame corruption. They say these efforts, including increasing the number of cases filed in court and jail terms secured in several convictions against corrupt persons across all levels of society, including hitherto sacred cows. What do you say to that? Well, you know, Nigerian government is always very defensive. Nigerian government is always going on defensive when any time any negative report comes about. The report is a true reflection of what is happening in Nigeria. Whatever ICPC or anybody says does not change that fact. That is the truth. So we know that Nigeria is heavily corrupt, is run by highly corrupt individuals who don't buy the nightly to steal money from public aid too. So the ICPC should not go on the offensive. They should just agree. Yes, they are claiming they are making efforts doing this, but the efforts are not acknowledged. What is a colleague's success? So how successful are they in the fight against corruption? Yes, you can say maybe they are increasing in their activities of trying to curb corruption. But your efforts are not what are acknowledged. It is a success that is acknowledged. How successful have you been in doing that? How have you been able to reduce corruption? Rather than reducing corruption, you can say that corruption is boggling. And your efforts, we are mounting, if the results are not there for people to see, we need a result. It's not about efforts. Okay, are you there, Mr. Chairman? Yes, I'm here, and I'm here with you. What about the fact that this index by Transparency International doesn't take the statistical facts and look at them. It just looks at perception, looking at what people think about what they've been hearing about the country, what they've been seeing in the news, some of the negative stories that have been coming out. And not really doing a statistical case-by-case analysis to really compare. The ICPC, of course, will always respond to these things. But if you look at the fact that this is basically on perception based on the events you've been hearing around us, should we really, really hold on to this? For instance, one record, one statistic that cannot be faulted and the ICPC has placed this before us in the past, is a Nigeria's leading Africa in access recovery. That is in the recovery of the proceeds of corruption. No other country in Africa is recovering as much as Nigeria's recording. What do you say to this? Well, you see, yes, perception. But perception is like a select. It's like, you know, your shun. And it is considerably representative of the kind of person that you are. So your shadow, wherever you go, if you bend it, bend it, stand it, stand it, sit it, sit. So we cannot throw it away. TI is a critical international organization when it comes to the area of corruption. But if I add that they are not, they do not go, they report, they don't go on a case-to-case basis. That's not to render the reporting in vain. It is for us to see it as our reality and work on it and ensure that this type of report does not come together. That is it. It's our responsibility to ensure that we work to destroy corruption before corruption and destroy all of us in this country. We should not be defensive about it. But it's a ranking. You know, that places countries with different realities and different dynamics within their own environment on a table that would send a message to the international community may affect investment and all. One would say it could argue that an organization like Transparency International is not really, may not be equipped to make such a ranking that would affect the 14th of nations, bearing in mind the different dynamics of these nations. And that we shouldn't be ranking people on a corruption chart based on perception because people would take that perception and make it their reality and make real decisions out of this. If you cannot go down to the nitty gritty to get the details to give the statistics, don't just take the perception of some people and take some new stories and then make it up into a ranking that you would give out to the international community to help them make decisions on what country to invest in, for instance. That this is very loosely based ranking that has far-reaching effects and consequences for countries around the world and their economies. I agree with you totally. That perception is important and it will affect the country's foreign direct investment substantially. But if you go to the streets of Nigeria and do an economic force popular, you will discover that Nigeria has 99 billionaires who agree with the TPI's ranking and reports because we see corruption every day. We experience corruption every day. We are victims of corruption every day. Yesterday, just yesterday, I was with a popular former senator and I experienced the ranking from a senator and then he received a call from the International Airport here in Nampuja and there is a letter that says a person that contains some documents that was sent to him by the U.S. by the United Nations and the quarry called him to say that some guys were demanding for bribe for him to pass through something that is not a contraband official letter from the United Nations organization to Nigeria. So the man said the man said he's not going to give the man, give the pilot. In fact, that one was a pilot. If the pilot should give them anything, he's not going to refund them because why should they what should they demand? Should they open the pass and see what's inside? What do they want to collect? So the issue is that we experience corruption every day and for anybody to want to hide behind one finger saying that the TI is wrong in his ranking I will not subscribe to that. Let us accept our reality and do something and work on it. Do something about our situation rather than complaining about the perception ranking of a TI. TI is doing its job. Let us do our job and work on it. It's about publishing the research parameters. If you are doing a statistical ranking where are the parameters on which your data is based. So it can be disaggregated for scrutiny. But we have to bring it to an end at this point. Well, thank you so much, Mark Adebayo. We do appreciate you. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. Thank you so much. I mean there are too many questions or acts but of course we have limited time and we look forward to having more and we appreciate your time. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, we appreciate it. And that's the size of the conversation. That's the size of the show this morning. It's been a great time. 7 o'clock till this moment. We will definitely return tomorrow and it promises to be a great time as well. Now if you missed out on a part of the conversation it's alright to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but plus TV Africa and do subscribe to our YouTube channel plus TV Africa Lifestyle. I am Messi Boko. I'm Coffey Bartels, I'll return tomorrow. Good morning.