Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and
publicity, says the report of Transparency International (TI) on corruption in
Nigeria is unacceptable.
Adesina spoke on the latest corruption perception index by
TI in an interview on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme on
Wednesday.
He said the war against corruption under the Buhari
administration does not need the validation of TI.
Nigeria currently ranks 154 out of 180 countries in the 2021
corruption perception index — a drop from 149 in the 2020 index.
According to Adesina, the report should be ignored because
it is foreign statistics without much validity. He added that corruption is a
global challenge and not peculiar to Nigeria alone.
“We don’t need TI’s report to authenticate or validate what
government is doing. Government is working and anti-corruption is one of the
key pillars of this administration,” Adesina said.
“Globally there’s no place that has eradicated corruption.
It is a national issue. This administration is fighting corruption and we are
getting results.
“I cannot rate the
corruption of the country, rather Nigerians should rate the government.”
He said the Buhari administration has fought corruption and
all anti-corruption agencies are making efforts to ensure corruption is reduced
in the country.
“The EFCC reported that they had over 2,000 convictions last
year alone. We have moved from a time that stealing is not corruption to now
that stealing is corruption,” Adesina said.
“The government has fought corruption very well. We have
statistics from all the agencies made up to fight corruption and they give
reports from time to time.”
Adesina added that Nigerians should be the ones to make such
accusations and not foreign sources.
“Now what would you rather believe, the information from
your country or information from outside. It depends on the statistics TI is
using but we know corruption is being fought in Nigeria,” he said.
“Also when such reports come, if we would believe such
report, it is not an indictment of the government, rather it is rather an
indictment of you and me because we constitute the country.”
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