Police officers, judges and
prosecutors are the most corrupt public officials in Nigeria, the National
Bureau of Statistics said in its latest report released yesterday.
The damning report came the same
day the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNODC) released its own
corruption report that said Nigeria spent N400bn annually on bribes to public
officials.
The 2017 National Corruption
Survey said 46.4 per cent of Nigerian citizens have had “bribery contact” with
police officers, 33 per cent with prosecutors and 31.5 per cent with
Judges/magistrates.
The survey, tagged ‘Corruption in
Nigeria - Bribery as Experienced by the Population’ also revealed that custom
officers, judges, magistrates and prosecutors were the public officials who
received the largest average cash bribes. The NBS estimated the average bribe
paid to Custom officers as N88, 587, Judges/magistrates as N18, 576 while
Prosecutors received an average of N10, 072 as bribes from Nigerians.
The survey also listed police
officers and tax/revenue officers as public officers to whom the highest number
of bribes were paid. It said 29.7 per cent of all bribes are paid to police
officers upon a direct request before the service is provided.
In the private sector, employees
of insurance companies, teachers in private schools and doctors in private
hospitals have highest bribe prevalence in Nigeria, the survey revealed.
The survey showed that 6.0 per
cent of Nigerians have come in contact with bribe-seeking employees of
insurance companies, 5.9 per cent with teachers in private schools and 3.7 per
cent with doctors.
The survey said men pay higher
bribes to public officials (37.1 per cent) than women (26.6 per cent).
The NBS also found that young
Nigerians have the highest prevalence of bribery in the country as 36.4 per
cent Nigerian population aged 25 to 34 years are the people with highest
bribery prevalence.
Further analysis of the report
showed that 37.7 per cent of people with highest prevalence of bribery have
attained tertiary education with people earning N100, 000 and above as those
with highest prevalence of bribery.
The highest and lowest prevalence
of bribery by geographical location and sex showed that 39.5 per cent of the
people are urban males while 24.9 per cent are rural women.
N400bn spent on bribes annually – UN
The 125-page UNODC titled
“Corruption in Nigeria, Bribery: Public Experience and Response, July 2017” was
presented to the public yesterday in Abuja.
The report also listed policemen
and the judiciary as topmost on the list of bribe takers. It also said
Nigerians spend 28.8 percent of their earnings on bribes.
The Head of Cooperation of the
European Union (EU) Kurt Cornelis said about €30m was spent on the survey and
other processes leading to the publication of the report.
Cornelis said the effort was part
of the EU, UNODC and other partners to help Nigeria overcome the scourge of
corruption.
The Statistician General of the
Federation and CEO of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of Nigeria Dr.
Yemi Kale and the UNODC Nigeria Representative Cristina Albertin said the
report was based on data collected in a survey of 33,067 households.
It was conducted in April and May
2016 across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
They described the study as the
largest corruption survey ever conducted in Africa.
“Almost a third of Nigerian
adults (32.3 percent) who had contact with a public official between June 2015
and May 2016 had to pay, or were requested to pay, a bribe to that public
official.
“The majority of those who paid a
bribe to a public official did so more than once a year. Bribe-payers in
Nigeria pay an average of some six bribes in one year, or roughly one bribe
every two months.
“Taking into account the fact
that nine out of every 10 bribes paid into public officials in Nigeria are paid
in cash and the size of the payment made, it is estimated that the total amount
of bribes paid to public officials in Nigeria in the 12 months prior to the
survey was around N400 billion, the equivalent of $4.6 billion in purchasing
power parity (PPP).
“This sum is equivalent to 39
percent of the combined federal and state education budgets in 2016,” the
report stated.
It said by combining the total
number of people who paid a bribe to a public official with the frequency of
those payments, it is estimated that a total of roughly 82.3 million bribes
were paid in Nigeria in 12 months prior to the survey.
This amounts to an average of
0.93 bribes per adults or one bribe paid by every adult Nigerian per year.
It also said the average sum paid
as a cash bribe is approximately N5,300 equivalent to $61 PPP, or an average of
28.2 percent of the average monthly salary of approximately N18,900.
While saying that 37.1 percent of
men pay bribes compare to 26.6 percent women, the report said that young adults
(25 to 34 years) are more vulnerable to bribery than older age groups and also
that higher level of education and income lead to greater risk of bribery.
In the ranking of bribe-takers,
the report lists the Police (46.4 percent), prosecutors (33.0 percent),
judges/magistrates (31.5 percent), tax/revenue officers (27.3 percent), custom
officers (26.5 percent), and public utilities (22.4 percent) as the highest.
Also, the report which lists the
prevalence and frequency of bribery at national level and zones with north-west
topping the list and north-east, south-south, south-west, north-central and
south-east following respectively,
It also lists south-west,
north-central, south-south, north-west, north-east and south-east respectively
where the highest numbers of bribes are paid by individuals.
The communication officer of the
UNODC Mr Sylvester Tunde Atere said that the “Support to anti-corruption in
Nigeria” project involved 14 anti-corruption agencies and 10 civil society
organisations (CSOs) grantees.
Presidency reacts
The Senior Special Assistant to
President Muhammadu Buhari on Prosecutions, Barrister Okoi Obono-Obla while
reacting to the survey especially that it was conducted in the first year of
the present administration said the survey is not an indictment.
He said the amount and other
figures involve does not indicate that the anti-corruption war of President
Buhari is not working.
He also blamed the judiciary for
the low successes recorded in the fight against corruption.
“The judiciary has not
demonstrated enough commitment to the ongoing war on corruption. That is why
the judges who were accused of corrupt practices were re-instated to their jobs
by the judiciary, without recourse to morality.
“Though many of them were
exonerated after due trial, but for the fact that they had faced charges of
corruption, they should have been excused from the bench,” Obono-Obla said.
While thumping-up the current
administration for the efforts at tackling corruption and recovering looted
funds, saying through the law on forfeiture, the federal government last
week, took possession of $437 million belonging to a looter, who is on the run.
He did not name the person involved.
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