Corruption Index: EFCC Knocks Transparency International Over ‘Baseless, Illogical’ Rating Of Nigeria

Transparency International (TI) seems to be at the eye of the storm after its rating of Nigeria the most corrupt country in West Africa as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has condemned in strong terms the ranking of the country.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the EFCC said the rating of Nigeria is “baseless, appalling and illogical”

TI had on Thursday in its latest report rated Nigeria 146 out of 180 countries analyzed in the 2019 corruption index. The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption in the opinion of experts and business people, using a scale of 0 to 100, where zero means “highly corrupt” and 100 means very clean.

The report said Nigeria dropped from the 27 points that it has maintained since 2017. In the 2018 index, Nigeria rose by four places from 148 to 144.

Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami had also faulted the claim by TI, noting that there are no proofs by the international organization to rank Nigeria 146 on the 2019 corruption perception index. Malami said the “facts on the ground do not correlate with the information dished out” by the organization.

According to the statement by EFCC, the rating is a far cry from evident strides and achievements so far accomplished by the anti-graft agency in the fight against corruption, particularly under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that such claim by TI is totally unacceptable.

EFCC argued that the report “is evidently not supported by any empirical data, especially when placed side-by-side with the remarkable achievements of the Commission in the past years.”

“Moreover, it is quite ironic that the report by TI posits that the index does not show real incidences of corruption, yet it claims that the report is a reliable indication of the perception of Nigerians and the international community about the state of corruption in the country,” EFCC said.