By Afeez Olawoyin
ABSTRACT
This article gives an overview of Nigeria’s recent experience with corruption in the context of economic development.
It also discusses the possible causes and effects of corruption, which are seen to be rooted in socio-cultural practices and the political and economic situation of the country.
Data were drawn, chiefly from news stories and interviews of Nigerians with relevant information.
The results of the study show that there have been significant reductions in the level of corruption in the country through the introduction of government anti-corruption instruments.
In addition, this study found a negative correlation between levels of corruption and economic growth, thereby making it difficult for Nigeria to develop quickly.
In Nigeria, corruptions stifle economic growth, reduces economic efficiency, and hinders development despite the enormous resources in the country. Corruption creates a negative national image and loss of much-needed revenue.
It devalues the quality of human life, robs schools, agricultural sectors, hospitals and welfare services of funds.
The biggest challenge for the country, therefore, is not just to punish corrupt behaviour or go into bargaining.
The country must reverse the prevailing culture in which corruption is viewed as permissible. People should be educated on the dangers of excessive materialism and the culture of ‘get rich quick’.
There is also the need for more job creation with better remuneration.
Corruption, Economic Growth, Economic Development
INTRODUCTION
Corruption is the effort to secure wealth or power through illegal means for private gain at public expense, or a misuse of public power for private benefit.
Corruption, like cockroaches, has co-existed with human society for a long time and remains as one of the problems in many of the world’s developing economies with devastating consequences.
Corruption as a phenomenon is a global problem and exists in varying degrees in different countries (Luna, 2002).
Corruption is not only found in democratic and dictatorial politics, but also in feudal, capitalist, and socialist economies. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures are equally bedeviled by corruption (Dike, 2005).
In Nigeria, it is one of the many unresolved problems that Madichie (2005) has critically highlighted, and skewed development.
It remains a long-term major political and economic challenge for Nigeria (Maduagwe, 1996).
It is a cankerworm that has eaten deep in the fabric of the nation.
It ranges from petty corruption to political/bureaucratic corruption or Systemic corruption (Abimbola, 2007).
World Bank studies put corruption at over $1 trillion per year, accounting for up to 12% of the Gross Domestic Product of nations like Nigeria, Kenya, and Venezuela (Nwabuzor, 2005).
Corruption is endemic as well as an enemy within (Acemoglu, 2000).
It is a cankerworm that has eaten deep in the fabric of the country and has stunted growth in all sectors. It has been the primary reason behind the country’s difficulties in developing quickly.
This is evident in Transparency International’s consistent rating of Nigeria as one of the top three most corrupt countries in the world (Ribadu, 2003).
As part of an effort to fight corruption and strengthen the economy, Nigeria embarked on an aggressive pursuit of economic reform that, through privatization, banking sector reform, anti-corruption campaigns, and establishment of clear and transparent fiscal standards since 1999.
The major aim of the economic reforms in Nigeria is to provide a conducive environment for private investment (African Economic Outlook, 2006).
The reform process has the following key pillars: improved macroeconomic management, reform of the financial sector, institutional reforms, privatisation and deregulation, and improvement of the infrastructure.
The importance of infrastructure for economic growth and development cannot be overemphasized.
The poor state of electricity, transport, and communications is a major handicap for doing business in Nigeria.
The Federal Government of Nigeria, through its Central Bank, made progress in the consolidation of the banking system, which was before the reforms, was highly fragmented, with many banks having very small and undiversified capitalisation.
The reform stipulated a minimum paid-up capital of $188 million, up from $15 million, with a deadline for compliance at the end of December 2005. This resulted in a record number of bank mergers and acquisitions.
As a result, the number of banks in Nigeria has shrunk from 89 in 2004 to 25 in December 2005 (Alisina,1999).
OBJECTIVE OF PAPER
The main objective of this paper is to analyse the effects of corruption on the economic growth and development of Nigeria in the context of its economic reform programme since 1999 to date.
An attempt at achieving this objective has led to the segmentation of the paper into three main sections.
The first section talks about the introduction and theoretical and doctrinal perspectives of corruption and economic reforms, section two deals with causes, extent, and challenges of corruption in Nigeria, and the last section concludes the paper with some policy recommendations (Amadi, 2004).
Doctrinal perspective of corruption and Economic reforms
It is very easy to talk about corruption, but like many other complex phenomena, it is difficult to define corruption in concise and concrete terms.
Not surprisingly, there is often a consensus as to what exactly constitutes this concept.
There is always a danger as well that several people may engage in a discussion about corruption while each is talking about a different thing completely (Balasa, 1985).
But in recent years, there has been a body of theoretical and empirical research on corruption (Bardhan, 1997).
To avoid the confusion of the definition of corruption, this paper gives an operational definition of corruption as conceptualized by some studies. Corruption is like cancer, retarding economic development.
According to Balasa (2001) corruption is seen as a “daunting obstacle to sustainable development”, a constraint on education, health care, and poverty alleviation, and a great impediment to the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.
The World Bank defines corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain.
Public office is abused through rent-seeking activities for private gain when an official accepts, solicits, or extorts a bribe.
Public office is also abused when private agents actively offer bribes to circumvent public policies and processes for competitive advantage and profit.
Public office can also be abused for personal benefit even if no bribery occurs, through patronage and nepotism, the theft of state assets, or the diversion of state resources (Basu, 1992).
A public official is corrupt if he accepts money for doing something that he is under duty to do or that he is under duty not to do.
Corruption is a betrayal of trust resulting directly or indirectly from the subordination of public goals to those of the individual.
In an elaborate analysis, the Central Bank of Nigeria (2006) divided corruption into seven distinct types: autogenic, defensive, extortive, investive, nepotistic, supportive, and transactive.
Autogenic corruption is self-generating and typically involves only the perpetrator.
A good example would be what happens in cases of insider trading.
A person learns of some vital information that may influence stocks in a company and either quickly buys or gets rid of large amounts of stocks before the consequences arising from this information come to pass.
Defensive corruption involves situations where a person needing a critical service is compelled to bribe to prevent unpleasant consequences being inflicted on their interests.
For instance, a person who wants to travel abroad within a certain time frame needs a passport to undertake the journey but is made to pay bribes or forfeit the trip. This personal corruption is in self-defense.
Extortive corruption, on the other hand, is the behavior of a person demanding personal compensation in exchange for services.
Investive corruption entails the offer of goods or services without a direct link to any particular favour at the present, but in anticipation of future situations when the favour may be required.
Nepotistic corruption refers to the preferential treatment of, or unjustified appointment of friends or relations to public office, in violation of the accepted guidelines.
The supportive type usually does not involve money or immediate gains, but involves actions taken to protect or strengthen the existing corruption.
For example, a corrupt regime or official may try to prevent the election or appointment of an honest person or government for fear that the individual or the regime might be probed by the successor(s).
Finally, transactive corruption refers to situations where the two parties are mutual and willing participants in the corrupt practice to the advantage of both parties.
For example, a corrupt businessperson may willingly bribe a corrupt government official in order to win a tender for a certain contract (Girling, 1997).
This paper will focus on the extortive, nepotistic, and transactive corruption, not only because they appear to be at the core of the corruption phenomenon, but also because the other forms appear to be the offshoot of these three fundamental types.
There are different vocabularies used to describe corruption in Nigeria.
Some of these are bribery, extortion (money and other resources extracted by the use of coercion, violence, or threats), and embezzlement (theft of public resources by public officials.
It is when a state official steals from the public institution in which he/she is employed, betrayal of trust, unfair advantages, financial malpractices, egunje, dash, gratification, brown envelopes, tips, emoluments, greasing, softening the ground, inducements, sub-payments, side payments, irregular payments, payment under the table, undocumented extra payments, facilitation payments, mobilisation fees, “routine governmental action,” revised estimates, padded contracts, over(under)-invoicing, cash commissions, kickbacks, payoffs, covert exchanges, shady deals, cover-ups, collusion, “10% rule” (bribe surcharge), “50% rule” (sharing bribe within the hierarchy), “let’s keep our secret secret,” “highly classified” transactions, customary gift-giving, tribute culture, nepotism (a special form of favouritism in which an office holder prefers his/her kinfolk and family members) (Greenaway,1994).
Corruption manifests itself in Nigeria in the form of abuse of positions and privileges, low levels of transparency and accountability, inflation of contracts, bribery/kickbacks, misappropriation or diversion of funds, under- and over-invoicing, false declarations, advance fee fraud, and other deceptive schemes known as “419”, collection of illegal tolls, commodity hoarding, illicit smuggling of drugs and arms, human trafficking, child labour, illegal oil bunkering, illegal mining, tax evasion, foreign exchange malpractices, including counterfeiting of currency, theft of intellectual property, and piracy, open market abuse, dumping of toxic wastes, and prohibited goods” (Goodling, 2003).
Government Efforts at Combating Corruption in Nigeria: Nigeria remains mired in corruption, crime, poverty, and violence despite the promulgation of several laws, like in other countries, as the principal mechanism for curbing corruption.
The legal instruments used to fight corruption in Nigeria include the Criminal Code, the Code of Conduct Bureau, the Recovery of Public Property Act of 1984, and the newly formed commissions (the EFCC and the ICPC).
Before 1966, the Criminal Code was the primary source of law dealing with corruption in Nigeria (Guhan,1997).
But due to the narrow nature of dealing with corruption, such as only criminalizing the conduct of bribe-taking public servants, leaving the private sector, it was replaced by the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Decree in 1966.
This, however, failed to stem the tide of corruption. The rules were confusing, thus leaving open the possibility that the guilty persons might escape punishment on technical grounds.
The Code of Conduct was thereafter formed in the 1979 Nigerian constitution, where complaints on corrupt practices are referred to the Code of Conduct Bureau Tribunal.
The Bureau forbids public officers from simultaneously receiving remuneration from two public offices and from engaging in private practices while in the employment of the government.
The code bars public servants from accepting gifts or benefits in kind for themselves or any other person on account of anything done or omitted to be done in the discharge of their duties.
It prohibits public officers from maintaining or operating foreign bank accounts.
Public officers are required to declare their assets and those of their families immediately after taking office, at the end of every four years in office, and at the end of their terms.
Due to the non-inclusion of the private sector, which is also corrupt in all these laws, in the year 2000, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act was promulgated, which eventually gave birth to the ICPC and the EFCC, charged with the responsibility of investigating, arresting, and charging any offenders with corrupt practices, either economic or financial crimes in Nigeria to court,( Hadi, 1999).
Causes and Challenges of Corruption in Nigeria
The economic growth approach can test the relationship between economic growth and corruption, but its main limitation lies in using the correct index of corruption in the objective function.
Most of the indices of corruption that had been used by Bardhan (1997) and Mandapaka (1995) were based on surveys.
These indices reflect either the general perception of the people on the level of corruption present in the country or the expert perception, and they fail to reflect the actual level of corruption present in the country.
The current literature on the impact of corruption lacks a theoretical framework that incorporates the potential effect of corruption on output through its impact on the arguments to the production function.
Nor does it address the effect of corruption through its impact on economic growth and development. The literature to date has only examined the hypothesized influences separately, ignoring the larger potential aggregate impact of corruption on output.
To overcome the shortcomings in the theoretical reviews, a neoclassical model of economic growth that explicitly includes human capital accumulation and the direct and indirect effects of corruption on economic growth has been developed.
This approach is superior to previous studies employing a variety of approaches that ignore the potential indirect effect of corruption on economic growth and development.
Our theoretical model suggests that output and growth are influenced by the level of corruption.
If one of the physical inputs in the production function suffers a quality loss in the presence of corruption, then this will also affect growth and the steady state level (Jain, 1998).
None of these models has been adopted in the analysis of corruption in Nigeria. This is largely due to a lack of data on corruption.
MAJOR CAUSES OF CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA
A number of factors have been identified as instrumental to enthroning corrupt practices in Nigeria.
These include, briefly, the nature of Nigeria’s political economy, the weak institutions of government, and a dysfunctional legal system.
Absence of clear rules and codes of ethics leads to abuse of discretionary power, make most Nigerians vulnerable to corrupt practices.
The country also has a culture of affluent and ostentatious living that expects much from “big men,” extended family pressures (Maduagwe, 1996), village/ethnic loyalties, and competitive ethnicity.
The country is also one of the very few countries in the world where a man’s source of wealth is of no concern to his neighbours, the public, or the government.
Once a man can dole out money, the churches, the Mosques pray for him, he will be honoured with chieftaincy titles and hobnob with those who govern.
The message to those who have not made it is clear: just be rich, the ways and means are irrelevant (Ubeku, 1991).
Low civil service salaries and poor working conditions, with few incentives and rewards for efficient and effective performance, are strong incentives for corruption in Nigeria.
Other factors are less effective government works with slow budget procedures, lack of transparency, inadequate strategic vision, and weak monitoring mechanisms, making Nigeria a fertile environment for corrupt practices.
The overall culture of governance has also played an important role.
Most of Nigeria’s leaders and top bureaucrats are setting bad examples of self-enrichment or ambiguity over public ethics, thereby promoting the lower-level officials and members of the public into corrupt practices (I.M.F., 2005).
Informal rules are found to supersede formal ones, thereby making stringent legal principles and procedures lose their authority.
Hence, bribery and corruption are taken by many Nigerians as the norm, even in the face of anti-corruption crusades intended to support clean governance.
Corruption and inefficiency are characteristics of service delivery in Nigeria, although private companies seem to perform more efficiently and less corruptly than public enterprises (Amadi, 2004).
Corruption has become so blatant and widespread that it appears as if it has been legalized in Nigeria (Imohe, 2005).
As Goodling (2003) notes, “since 1996, Nigeria was labeled the most corrupt nation three times: 1996, 1997, and 2000: and placed in the bottom five four more times: fourth from the bottom in 1998 and second in 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003”.
The 1996 Study of Corruption by Transparency International and Goettingen University ranked Nigeria as the most corrupt nation, among 54 nations listed in the study, with Pakistan as the second highest (Kaufman, 1998).
As this was not too bad enough, the 1998 Transparency International corruption perception index (CPI) of 85 countries, Nigeria was 81 out of the 85 countries pooled.
In 1999, Transparency International (TI) released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranking 99 countries in order of their perceived levels of corruption, with number one being the least corrupt. Nigeria, at number 98, was only one rank above its neighbor, Cameroon.
In the 2001 corruption perception index (CPI), the position remained unchanged as the second corrupt nation in the World (ranked 90, out of 91 countries pooled) with Bangladesh coming first.
In October 2003, reports were released in London, Nigeria, at number 132 was still only one rank above Bangladesh, even though the number of countries in the
The latter poll had increased to 133 countries (Knack, 1995).
The 2004 Corruption Perceptions Index, released by Transparency International (TI), the watchdog on global corruption, again ranks Nigeria as the third most corrupt country in the world.
Until June 2007, Nigeria had not been exonerated from the list of the top ten leading countries on corruption.
On sectoral distribution, the nationwide corruption survey in the Nigeria Corruption Index (NCI) 2007 identified the The Nigerian Police is the most corrupt organization in the country, closely followed by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Corruption in the Education Ministry was found to have increased from 63 per cent in 2005 to 74 per cent in 2007, as against 96 per cent to 99 per cent for the Police in the corresponding period.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was the only new organisation identified as corrupt among the 16 organisations on a list which included the Joint Admission Matriculation Board, the Presidency, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
While the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) have been identified as the least corrupt organizations with respect to bribery taking from the populace as of June 2007 (Abimbola, 2007).
Another area in which corruption has manifested itself in Nigeria is in the area of project execution.
For instance, Ajaokuta, a steel mill in Nigeria, has been under construction for the past seventeen years and throughout that period of time has consumed seven billion dollars.
It has produced no steel. The mill is a white monolith of steel and concrete, epitomizing the inefficiency of corruption.
Another example is Alscon upper block (an aluminum plant in Nigeria), which has consumed three billion dollars over the past five years.
The project was to produce 190,000 tons of aluminum, but, like its predecessor, Ajaokuta, it has not produced any aluminum to date (Mauro, 1995).
Positive consequences of the use of anti-corruption instruments in Nigeria
The introduction of two institutions (the EFCC and ICPC) to tackle corruption has yielded positive results in curbing corruption in Nigeria.
There have been several high-profile convictions since its inception.
Many advance fee fraud (“419”)kingpins have been detained, two judges have been sacked and two others suspended, several legislators (including a past Senate president) have lost their legislative posts and are being prosecuted, three ministers have been dismissed, a former Inspector General of Police, the top law enforcement official in the country has been tried, convicted and jailed for corruption with some state governors impeached by their state assemblies for corruption (Okonjo-Iweala, 2005).
Through the government’s anti-corruption crusade, about N84 billion was recovered from the family of the late Head of State, Sani Abacha, as of 2001.
Between May 2003 and June 2004, the EFCC in Nigeria recovered money and assets from crime of over $700 million, as well as recovering £3 million through the British Government.
The commission prosecuted a fraud case involving $242 million arising from a bank fraud in Brazil in 2005.
Overall, about 350 EFCC cases are at an advanced stage of prosecution.
About 5,000 people have been arrested over the past three years.
There have been about 91 convictions for various corruption crimes, and assets worth over $55 billion have been seized, confiscated, and refunded to the state and various victims of crime (Ribadu, 2006).
The body has increased the revenue profile of the nation by about 20% due to its activities in the federal Inland Revenue service and the seaports, recovered billions for the government in respect of failed government contracts, curbed oil bunkering in the Niger Delta, from about 300,000 –500,000 daily to less than 50,000 barrels, with the Prosecution of over 20 persons involved in the vandalisation of oil pipelines (Imohe 2005).
Recent survey data from Kaufman (2005) indicated that there has been a reduction in the perception of corruption by Nigerian firms in obtaining trade permits, in paying taxes, in procurement, in the judiciary, in the leakage of public funds, and in money laundering.
However, the recent reports by the World Bank and Transparency International 2007 identified the Nigerian Police as the most corruption-riddled organization in the country, followed by the Power Holding Company Limited (PHCL).
Investigation has shown that the Nigerian Police scaled up roadside bribery from N20 to N50.
That is to say, whenever any driver was pulled over at a checkpoint for any reason whatsoever, he or she would be expected to shell out N50.00 as a bribe.
This amounts to a hundred and fifty percent increase from the amount that was recently paid as bribes to the “Nigerian department of police roadblock”.
This ritual is repeated at every ten or twenty miles when a commercial vehicle driver confronts a different squad of Police (Tirole, 1996).
Negative consequences of Economic reforms and anti-corruption instruments in Nigeria
Corruption is a plague, a disease, spreading throughout developing nations, and the world needs to inoculate these nations against this infection.
Corruption is a tool of evil wielded by the wealthy and powerful of developing nations in order to make themselves richer and even more powerful.
These are the only people who benefit from this disease.
The lower classes in developing nations are hard hit by the excessive bribes and loss of infrastructure (Ubeku, 1991).
Several empirical studies have shown a negative relationship between corruption and economic growth (Mauro, 1995).
Corruption diverts resources from the poor to the rich; increases the cost of running businesses, distorts public expenditures, and deters foreign investment (Mauro, 1997, and Adesina, 1999).
Corruption saps a country’s economy by hampering tax collection and undermining the enforcement of important regulations.
Corruption also creates loss of tax revenues and monetary problems, leading to adverse budgetary consequences Knack, 1995), and is likely to produce a certain composition of capital flows that makes a country more vulnerable to shifts in international investors’ sentiments and expectations (Balasa, 1985).
In addition, corruption harms human development and increases the cost of basic social services (Kaufman, 1998).
Corruption has had severe negative consequences on the economic growth and development of Nigeria.
Even where improper conduct, such as fraud and bribery, does not directly involve government, the public effects are severe.
Corruption has adversely affected governance and the larger social structure. It has crippled the state’s ability to deliver for its citizens’ enjoyment of even the minimum social and economic rights, including health and education.
This generally leads to a retardation of economic development and to the deterioration of whatever public infrastructure has been put in place (Dike, 2005).
Critically, it has been observed that in Nigeria, unbridled corruption has led to bad governance.
Corruption and mismanagement swallow about 40 percent of Nigeria’s $20 billion annual oil income (Ribadu 2004).
Corruption disrupts the capital flow throughout entire developing nations.
Tax income is generally far below what the government requires in order to carry out basic services in corrupt nations.
Corruption also stunts international trade. The World Trade Organization (WTO) increases impediments to trade if a country maintains an “out-of-control” level of corruption or extortion.
If a developing nation attempts to deal with these problems, the WTO will decrease the impediments, giving the nation an incentive to reduce skyrocketing corruption levels.
The anti–corruption crusade of Nigeria might then be one of the reasons why the country is enjoying the support of the international community (C.B.N, 2006).
Other specific negative consequences of corruption in Nigeria are: loss of much-needed revenue; decrease in the level of Foreign Direct Investment, and loss of viable businesses by Nigerian banks.
Corruption diminishes national prestige and respect, leads to brain drain, civil unrest, business failure and unemployment, election rigging, and absence of law and order, and failure of government institutions (Ribadu, 2003).
Most Nigerians are treated with suspicion in most business dealings, thereby causing some honest Nigerians to suffer the stigma of corruption due to stereotyping.
Ribadu (2006) opined that corruption is worse than terrorism because it is responsible for the perpetual collapse of infrastructure and institutions in Nigeria; it is the cause of the endemic poverty and underdevelopment, and the cyclical failure of democracy to take root.
Poverty is found to persist in Nigeria because of the mismanagement of resources and corruption, particularly in the public sector (Alesina, 1999).
Corruption stifles businesses that are unwilling to engage in this nefarious activity; ironically, it also eventually destroys the companies that yield to this practice, thus halting or at least delaying considerably the march toward economic progress and ultimately sustained development (Basu, 1992).
The Challenge of curbing corruption and the implementation of economic reform programmes in Nigeria
Some human ailments could require many doses of medicine to be treated. Similarly, the menace of corruption, which has eaten deep into the fabric of Nigeria, would require all the necessary antidotes to effectively control it.
In other words, no single and simple remedy will achieve it, and the problem cannot be solved because corruption has been ingrained into the fabric of the society (Dike, 2005).
Nigeria has, in theory, the solutions in the book to tackle corruption, but like poverty bedeviling the nation, implementations of the laws are the Achilles heel (a vulnerable point) of the society (Amadi, 2004).
In the name of turning Nigeria into a corruption-free society, the nation has experimented with many strategies, programmes, and policies.
It has tried the judicial commissions of enquiry, the Code of Conduct Bureau. It had wrestled with the Public Complaints Commission to no avail.
Also, it fiddled with the Mass Mobilization for Social Justice and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), and the National Open Apprenticeship (NOA), War Against Indiscipline Council (WAIC), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in 1989, Money Laundering Act of 1995, re-enacted in 2004, advance fee fraud (419) and fraud related offences Act of 1995, prosecution and conviction of high ranking administration officials, tracing, seizing and confiscation of all proceeds of crime, privatization of failing public institutions, creation of an enabling environment for effective private-public partnerships, failed banks Act of 1996, banks and other financial institutions Act of 1991, foreign exchange Act of 1995 etc.
But corruption instead blossomed.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in the year 2000, also instituted an Anti-Corruption Commission (ICPC) under the Independent Corrupt Practices Related Offences Act of 2000, and also established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003 through external pressure from the G8 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ( Jain, 1998).
Other institutional approaches include the establishment of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU), otherwise known as “Due Process”, monthly publication of distributable revenue from the Federation Account to the different tiers of government.
But the assessment of corruption in Nigeria indicates some reasons why corruption still thrives in the country.
According to Kaufman (1998), all measures against corruption have not been fruitful in Nigeria because they have operated at a level of mere symbolism.
Those wagging the corruption wars are themselves corrupt. Some of the corrupt leaders still find it difficult to change the moral tone of the country.
Government domination of the economic sphere significantly enhances opportunities and the ability to seek rents. Civil society also still accepts or tolerates corruption.
Another reason why attempts at curbing corruption still failed in Nigeria hinges on the fact that the entrenched and institutionalized phenomenon of the country, the failure of law enforcement agencies/workforce, constitutional constraints (i.e. some provisions of our constitution seem to give immunity to some set of people), and attitude of defense lawyers using delay tactics to stall or forestall trials, thus resulting in congestion and slow pace of our court proceedings, (Goodling, 2003).
CONCLUSION
There is, therefore, a clear-cut correlation between corruption and economic growth, and if stringent measure is not taken against it, the development of the affected country would be impaired.
Corrupt regimes always yield disastrous results. Corruption, which is equal to monopoly plus discretion, minus accountability, has a serious impediment to sustainable development, especially in developing countries.
It has stolen the wealth of resource-rich nations like Nigeria, thereby trapping people to be trapped in poverty.
Even while thinking of some firms/people as if better off through payment of a bribe by most people, the overall effect of corruption on economic development remains negative.
The more corrupt a country is, the slower its economic growth rate.
Corruption is a stigma that destroys the reputation of the affected country. It lowers investment, thereby lowering the economic growth of the country.
Despite the existing challenges facing Nigeria after the establishment of the two major anti-graft institutions (ICPC and the EFCC) by the government in 2000 and 2003, respectively, the reforms have yielded some concrete results with a reduction of corruption levels when compared with the pre-reform periods, when the Criminal Code and Code of Conduct Bureaus were used to check corrupt practices on public office holders only.
It is in the rules and practices of governance that the foundations of sustainable development are shaped or undermined.
The very basis of development becomes compromised when these rules and practices are not effectively monitored and applied.
Development suffers where the rules of governance allow arbitrary resource allocations and the diversion of public resources in defiance of the public good and to the exclusive benefit of corrupt officials, politicians, and their collaborators.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Every country has to determine its own priorities in the war against corruption. To tame the surge of corruption in Nigeria, as Dike 1999 and 2002 pointed out, the general population should be re-orientated to a better value system.
This is because Nigerians have long been living on the survival of the fittest and grab-whatever-comes-your-way mentality.
The re-orientation of the youth in Nigeria to a good value system could help in the war against corruption.
There is a need for enlightenment in discouraging excessive materialism and the culture of ‘get rich quick’, employment for the teeming youths, and the incorporation of human rights and development perspectives into anti-corruption work.
For Nigeria to successfully combat corruption, there is a need for a mechanism that will transform dramatically the culture and legacy of corruption.
Positive transformation of Nigeria can only occur through addressing the root causes of corruption and through effectively implementing the legal mechanisms already in place.
Nigeria has introduced economic reforms through privatization, deregulation, removal of market restrictions, and civil service reform with the aim of promoting the integrity of public service.
These measures are all very important in the fight against corruption, but the key factor to galvanize and orchestrate these measures is having honest leaders with the political will to tackle corruption.
There is a need for enlightenment in discouraging excessive materialism and the culture of ‘get rich quick’, employment for the teeming youths, and the incorporation of human rights and development perspectives into anti-corruption work.
The provision of appropriate punishment for corruption in and of itself is not sufficient to eliminate corruption.
The phenomenon of corruption has multiple causes and is determined by more than just seeing people go unpunished for engaging in corrupt behaviour.
It is recommended that, in addition to other measures being taken to reduce corruption, the leadership must demonstrate the willingness to track and punish corrupt officials and citizens, as well as create a conducive economic climate that would raise the standard of living of the citizenry.
Programmes such as the social safety net should be instituted among the non-working class to reduce the worry about basic survival in the face of growing insecurity about the job situation.
Finally, there is the need for the provision of adequate resources to anti-corruption agencies and non-interference of government on the mandate given to the anti–corruption agencies to make them effective.
Unless the government is willing to commit adequate resources to fund and operate the agencies and make them truly independent, the anti-corruption efforts might not be able to withstand the opposing forces of the corrupt elements in the country.
Afeez Olawoyin is the Senior Marketing Manager, Hamdafat Global Ltd.
