We’re Not Fighting Corruption To Impress You, FG Tells TI

The Federal Government has said it would not be distracted by the rating of the Transparency International, which ranked Nigeria low in its latest international Corruption Perception index.

The federal government also said it was not fighting corruption to impress any organisation including Transparency International.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, gave the government position on Wednesday in London when he featured on respective interview session with some international media organisations.

Reacting to the TI rating, the minister said that the position by the organisation that Nigeria is doing worse in fighting corruption is incorrect and the government is unhappy about the development.

“In any event, we are not fighting corruption because we want to impress any organisation.

“We are fighting corruption because we believed that without fighting the menace, the much-sought development will not happen and we have results to show for fighting corruption.

“We have put in place policies and legislations that have tamed the monster called corruption.

“For instance, apart from the TSA, which has saved us billions of Naira, we put in place transparency portal which enables every Nigerians to see how much is being spent by the government every day.

“Under the transparency portal regulation, any expenditure above N5 billion must be reported and that gives every Nigerian the opportunity to know exactly what is going on.

“We will continue to fight corruption and we know that we are winning the war,” he said.

The minister stressed that for the first time in the history of the country, high profile people have been convicted of corruption charges.

“For those who say that the anti-corruption fight is selective, how do you say that when serving Senators and past governors who were members of the ruling party are now serving jail terms,’” he said

In the latest TI rating, Nigeria was ranked 146 out of the 180 countries that were surveyed worldwide.

By the rating, Nigeria slipped from 144th to 146th position in the corruption perception index, falling by 26 points, a minus of one when compared to its score in 2018.