Corruption has been around for thousands of years , but in recent years it has drawn increasing attention especially political corruption . Political corruption is essentially regarded as the misuse of power and authority by government officials for their own selfish and private gains. This form of corruption is very common in many nations . The activities affected by illegal corruption differ depending on jurisdiction or country .Campaign distributions is a common prime of this type of corruption. Bribery is a very and easy form of corruption in many countries. Worldwide, bribery alone has an estimate of over 1 trillion US dollars annually .
The aim of this essay is to suggest the launch of a new anti-corruption initiative to combat political corruption ,keeping in mind the existing anti-corruption initiatives . This will be made clearer using corruption in Nigeria as a case study to understand how to come up with an initiative to combat the political corruption. The first section of this essay will give a brief definition of the terms political corruption and Corruption . The second section will identify the types of corruption common in Nigeria .The third section will discuss the level of political corruption in Nigeria and its current initiatives .In addition , the sources of these initiatives will be mentioned briefly .The fourth section will conclude with recommendations on the Nigerian anti -corruption initiative and suggestion to making it better .
DEFINITIONS
According to the (Tanzi) Corruption is the abuse of public power for private benefits. This is the definition used by the World Bank . This does not meant corruption cannot exist in activities of private sectors. It exists even in large enterprises and private ventures regulated by the government. In addition ‘Political corruption is a complex set of activities that often involves multiple actors — the politicians who are the recipients of kickbacks, the businesses who are the payers, and the bureaucrats who facilitate the illegal transactions between public officials and businesses — and multiple goals, including both personal enrichment and campaign financing’ (Chang , Golden). The causes of its development are many and vary from one country to the next. Among the contributing factors are policies, programs and activities that are poorly conceived and managed, failing institutions, poverty, income disparities, inadequate civil servants’ remuneration, and a lack of accountability and transparency. (“Prevention: An Effective Tool To Reduce Corruption”)
At that point a lack of political commitment and resources institutional, human, and financial hampers anti-corruption efforts.
For the average person, a bribe is the most obvious evidence of corruption. In many countries, applicants for driver’s licenses, building permits, birth certificates, etc. have learned to expect a surcharge from civil servants in order to obtain these documents. However, the consequences of corruption are more pervasive and profound than these bribes suggest. Corruption diverts leads funding resulting in services of poor quality or that are simply unavailable. (“Prevention: An Effective Tool To Reduce Corruption”)
Corruption can also be categorised in other ways. A distinction can be made between benefits that are paid willingly (bribery) and payments that are exacted from unwilling clients (extortion). Another way to categorize is to differentiate between bribes paid for what a client has a legal right to receive and bribes paid to receive benefits belonging to others. (“Prevention: An Effective Tool To Reduce Corruption”)
Having stated the above , political corruption is a type of corruption which is very common within nations especially developing countries such as Nigeria , Kenya and more . Political or grand corruption takes place at the high levels of the political system. It is when the politicians and state agents, who are entitled to make and enforce the laws in the name of the people, are themselves corrupt. Political corruption is when political decision-makers use the political power they are armed with, to sustain their power, status and wealth.(Amudsen). Political corruption occurs at the top level of the state, and it has political repercussions.
Political corruption not only leads to the misallocation of resources, but it also affects the manner in which decisions are made. Political corruption is the manipulation of the political institutions and the rules of procedure, and therefore it influences the institutions of government and the political system, and it frequently leads to institutional decay. Furthermore , Political corruption is therefore something more than a deviation from formal and written legal norms, from professional codes of ethics and court rulings. Political corruption is when laws and regulations are more or less systematically abused by the rulers, side-stepped, ignored, or even tailored to fit their interests (Amudsen) .This will be further reviewed in the essay when discussing political corruption in Nigeria . As this is a huge problem within the Nigerian government over the past years . Below will discuss corruption in Nigeria and analyse existing anti-corruption initiatives with suggestions on how to reduce corruption .
Background Corruption
Presently, practically every nation, including Nigeria, has embraced some type of hostile to defilement law. The way that the ant-corruption organisation, Transparency International (TI), has reliably positioned Nigeria as one of the top three most nations countries on the planet on its Corruption Perception Index makes it clear that the Nigerian government needed to make a move against the corruption issues tormenting their nation. Corruption in the worldwide world has turned into a cause for concerns in many nations, such as Nigeria. In a 2002 survey led by TI, more than 25,000 individuals out of 50,000 surveyed in 64 nations all through the world said that they had paid a pay off in the last 12 months. Approximately 50% of all respondents additionally demonstrated that bribery influenced business to a substantial degree.All together , 1 out of 10 respondents admitted that they or a member of their household have received bribe in the past year at the time. Practices of Corruption in Nigeria have turned out to be very common to the point that between 1996 and 2002 Nigeria liberated between the world’s most corrupt and the fourth most corrupt country with whom to work together. Due to how rate of giving and accepting bribes , Some Nigerians argue that this is part of the nations culture as they know it . Corruption is a certain way to the down fall of Nigeria. It not just influences the honesty of Nigeria in the worldwide business world all in all, additionally the trustworthiness of those nations with which Nigeria trades.
Common types of Corruption in Nigeria
Opportunist Corruption : Opportunist corruption includes the art of paying bribes to gain illegal advantage . This kind of corruption is common in Nigeria it is basic information that “lubing the palms” of open officers is normal before execution of the asked for administrations starts. At the end of the day, they expect some type of money related compensation ,in order to carry out the required duty.. In a few circumstances, refusal to “oil the palm” of an authority may prompt to delays in getting the services wanted.
Widespread Corruption : Pervasive corruption is the circumstance in which the public all in all underwrites the taking of bribes as humanly allowed . The means of obtaining services has become very excessive as it is now influences the services rendered in Nigerian Industries. So as to guard these degenerate practices Nigerians insist its a necessity in the Nigerian Culture.
Systematic Corruption : This type of corruption involves the attempt of reaping personal benefits . Systematic Corruption leads to direct extortion to anyone demanding services in order for those services to be carried out . In addition , systematic corruption impacts mostly on the Nigerian International business enterprises because of the affected reputation of Nigeria amongst the international system.
Destructive Corruption : Destructive corruption depicts circumstances in which the rich look to procure more riches, which motivates them to go through any means necessary to acquire these shares. This sort of corruption is common at the government level where authorities have access to the nation’s money related resources. Sometimes when contracts are granted for authorities to assemble foundations in a specific area or state, they usurp the assets for their own personal uses , making it exceptionally hard for the nation to establish a poverty state.
These different types of corruption not just halt an economies progress, as assets are occupied to individual use, additionally impart authorities with wastefulness and expanded expenses.
Current anti-corruption strategies
According to the International Business Law Journals (Opara) at the time the president was president Olusegun Obasanjo. He took it upon himself to fight against corruption and effectively as he knew how badly corrupt the government was . For a government to be effective the corruption had to be tackled .He recognised there was need to implement anti-corruption initiatives. The activities are required by the level of corruption in Nigeria, which is known all through the world. He concurred that until 1999, when he presented Nigeria’s Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Act (CPROA), “the nation had essentially standardized corruption as the establishment of governance. The rise of corruption in Nigeria to uncommon extents prompted to the simple rot of societal foundations. He guaranteed this rot prompted to privatization of chances by the capable, “terrorizing of the legal, the subversion of due process, the control of existing laws and directions, the suffocation of common society, and the regulation of just values and organizations”.
During the same address ,he outlined the motherland of corruption to the requirement for survival in a nation where residents are compelled to devise additional lawful and casual methods for survival. He yielded that power has gotten to be only a way for growth and subversion; as gainful activities were surrendered, corruption was permitted to set in. Indeed, he asserted that at the base of this corruption was the virtual fall of administration, disintegration of responsibility measures, and the pervasiveness of terrible leadership. The address by the president showed how crucial the need to reform was and the use of anti-corruption initiatives.
At this point , Nigerians knew they could not bear the cost of the social, political, or economic costs that the corruption had incurred on their nation. The inability to address the issue of corruption would incline to financial suicide. It was clear something had to be done to save the nation. The government at the time began by researching what different nations had executed to controlling corruption, and went with the same pattern by returning to some of their own anti-corruption laws, proclaiming new against corruption activities, and making the forces to realize those initiatives.
Anti-corruption Initiatives by other nations
According to Journals of International Business law Journals (Opara) ‘The first country to address the issue of corruption was the United States with the enactment of the FCPA of 1977. The FCPA was enacted to halt the bribery of foreign officials and to restore public confidence in the integrity of the American business system. The FCPA criminalized the offering of bribes to foreign officials in exchange for their services. The creation of this Act was necessitated by several publicized scandals involving bribery of foreign officials. Investigations by the SEC in the mid-1970s “revealed that over 400 U.S. companies admitted making questionable or illegal payments in excess of $300 million to foreign government officials, politicians, and political parties. The FCPA’s aim is to makes it unlawful for a firm to offer, pay or, then again guarantee to pay cash or anything of significant worth to any outside authority for the “reason for acquiring or holding business for or with, or guiding business to, any individual”. ‘By the 1990s other countries ha started joining the US in their battle to combat corruption. In addition According to Journal of International Business Law Journals (Opara) ‘ The Anti-Bribery Convention requires advanced countries to pass laws similar to the FCPA. Its most important aim and achievement is to promote high standards through the recommendations of its working group, which was implemented to “assess how effective each country’s anti-foreign bribery laws are in practice. The Anti-Bribery Convention has, thus far, contributed to levelling the competitive playing field for companies doing trans- border business”. Following the chain of anti-corruption initiatives event the United Kingdom began their own anti-corruption initiative. Prime Minister Tony Blair was at the front line of the present war against bribery in the extractive industries This is obvious by the main part Blair took in building up the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (EITI), an intentional revelation code. This activity permitted the development of payments by organizations to governments and government-connected substances, and also honesty of incomes by those host nation governments. Incomes from the petroleum business as “duties, sovereignties, signature rewards, and different initiatives are an essential motor for monetary development and social advancement in creating … nations”. However, absence of responsibility and honesty in these incomes can fuel poor administration and prompt to corruption, destruction, and promote poverty. This was the similar case in Nigeria as of that time .Nigeria is still a developing country rich in oil and gas resources but more than half of its population are under the poverty line . (Opara)
Sources of Nigeria’s anti-corruption initiatives
There are several laws in the Nigerian Government system that promote corruption namely the Nigerian Constitution. Just because the laws stand does not necessarily mean they will be lucrative . The police depended on to achieve this success. Some of the anti-corruption initiatives implemented are : corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Act (CPROA), the Independent Corrupt Practice Commission (ICPC) . Nigeria also took part in the ECOWAS the Economic Community of West African States This allowed Nigeria to become part of the Attorney general and justice ministers. Nigeria also amalgamated in the development of the “inchoate sub-regional protocol on Corruption”. In December 2002, according to its dedication to decrease corruption , Nigeria additionally settled the Economic and Financial Crimes commission (EFCC) to research every single budgetary crime. The EFCC set up a Financial Intelligence Unit to fortify its ability for checking and authorizing laws against tax evasion and other monetary violations The present patterns of corruption in Nigeria have prompted to the subversion of the manage of law, the destruction of governments , and the defeat of the Nigerian economy, with Nigerian authorities perceiving that edgy circumstances call for rash measures. Therefore, the Nigerian government started researching different approaches to combating corruption through the usage of a few methodologies went for battling corruption and re-establishing Nigeria’s picture internationally. Some of the sources of these initiatives will be listed in the next section briefly.
Some sources of Nigeria’s anti-corruption Initiative
1. More Accountability in the Public Sector
2. Enforcement of Existing Anti-Corruption Laws
3. Establishment of a Public Procurement Commission
4. More Transparency in the Oil and Gas Sector
5. Transparency in the Privatization and Market Liberalization Processes
6. Political Transparency
7. ExtractiveIndustriesTransparencyInitiative
Every initiative listed above has its own strategies and techniques for requirement, yet when taken together should make a huge difference , and ideally decrease, the corruption issue. In addition last year in the London summit in 2016, the current president of Nigeria Muhammad Buhari listed new initiatives adapted by Nigeria .These initiatives were discussed in 3 sections .
1. Exposing Corruption
2. Punishing the corrupt and supporting the victims of corruption
3. Drive out the culture of corruption where it exists
This document commented on the important sectors of the Nigerian government with ways on how to control and eventually eliminate the corruption within the system. The consequences of corruption was also touched on as punishing the wrong doers might show other corrupt officials and individuals other that the nation is determined to combat corruption.
Recommendations
Corruption has been a huge issue in Nigeria . The finding of oil and the haeavy riches which streams there to the nation is to a great extent the cause of corruption in Nigeria. Preceding oil riches, agriculture was the nation monetary backbone, especially Cocoa, Rubber, Groundnut and many more. However these were pushed into insensibility with the revelation of oil which turned into the nation primary source of income. It opened Nigeria into an extensive stream of huge amount of money . The money earned from oil in a year was much more than what was produced using agro based causes for a long while. Government used money without much control making way for corruption to hold influence from that point onward and it has stayed till today, spiralling out of control. The Nigerian anti-corruption initiative is working smoothly ,below I will make a few suggestions to making it better and more effective. (Olufemi Runcie)
1. More transparency
2. Stricter regulations
3. Updating policies
If the Nigerian government take heed to the recommendations above at the same time with the current anti-corruption initiatives in matter of years should halt the growth of corruption and better Nigeria’s economy.
Conclusion
Corruption cannot be wiped in a year or two it will take time to completely combat corruption in Nigeria . There is progress in the anti-corruption initiatives implemented by the Nigerian president as of the time and the new president as of now. By the number of anti-corruption programs created , Nigerians can have hope that their country can be corruption free some day.
There is always space for improvement with the recommendations I suggested in the paragraph above .The battle on corruption is not over till present. .
References :
Amudsen, Inge. “Cite A Website – Cite This For Me”. Cmi.no. N.p., 1999. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.
Chang , Golden, Brian , Miriam. “Electoral Systems, District Magnitude And Corruption”. N.p., 2004. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
Lopez, Augusto. “Six Strategies To Fight Corruption”. Future Development. N.p., 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.
Olufemi Runcie, Kayode. “Corruption In Nigeria | Corruption”. Scribd. N.p., 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.
Opara, Ijeoma. “Cite A Website – Cite This For Me”. Scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu. N.p., 2007. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.
“Prevention: An Effective Tool To Reduce Corruption”. N.p., 1999. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.
Tanzi, Vito. “Corruption Around The World”. N.p., 1998. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
“The Institutional Economics Of Corruption And Reform”. N.p., 2007. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.