Unic Press UK: In Nigeria, the Judiciary [which is one of the arms of government] and the Police Force have been named as ‘principal’ promoters of bribery and corruption, in a report ‘Corruption in Nigeria – Bribery: Public Experience and Response’ by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the European Union.
Summary of the report:
- 33,067 interviews with adults across Nigeria.
- Prevalence of bribery in the public sector 32.3%. [“Almost a third of Nigerian adults (32.3 per cent) 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.”]
- 82.3 million bribes, that is the estimated number of bribes paid in the 12 months prior to the survey. “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 400 billion Nigerian Naira (NGN), the equivalent of $4.6 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP).”
- Circa 46% of the respondents who had directly engaged with a Nigerian police officer a year prior to the survey did confirm that the policeman accepted bribes.
- In the case of the judiciary, the risk of bribery was found to be commonplace with prosecutors. “Although fewer people come into contact with judiciary officials than with police officers over the course of the year, when they do, the risk of bribery is considerable: at 33 per cent, the prevalence of bribery in relation to prosecutors is the second highest, closely followed by judges and magistrates, at 31.5 per cent.”
- About 42% percent of the respondents had to pay bribes to facilitate/speed up administrative work otherwise, civil servants would have delayed or refused to carry out the work.
- The average amount of money paid in a cash as bribe is approximately ₦5,300
- From June 2015 to May 2016, Nigerians spent ₦400 billion ($1.3 billion] to bribe officials.
The full report can be download at: file:///C:/Users/owner/Downloads/National%20corruption%20report%202016%20bribery_.pdf
Unic Press UK interview with a number of Nigerian revealed that this report by UNODC seems to have confirmed what many adult Nigerians might have been aware of. The posers remain how Nigerian political leadership will address this very serious problem, bribery, that has spread to the ends of the country.
UNODC, a United Nations office, which was established in 1997, has three pillars, viz:
- “Field-based technical cooperation projects to enhance the capacity of Member States to counteract illicit drugs, crime and terrorism;
- Research and analytical work to increase knowledge and understanding of drugs and crime issues and expand the evidence base for policy and operational decisions;
- Normative work to assist States in the ratification and implementation of the relevant international treaties, the development of domestic legislation on drugs, crime and terrorism, and the provision of secretariat and substantive services to the treaty-based and governing bodies”
