The Corruption Perception Index —by Ben Usang

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26 February 2018 
Just recently Transparency International Released their Corruption Perception Index where Nigeria was rated as doing worse than previous years in the index. 
The report for me clearly represents one side of the analysis of corruption status of a country as it relies on how the citizens feel about corruption in their country. Clearly if the report is a true reflection of the perception of many Nigerians who would have taken part in the survey that resulted in the report then the fight against corruption by the Buhari's administration is justified as being a menace requiring greater effort and impetus. 
What we however need to be informed is what was the benchmark or criteria that Transparency International adopted in their assessment? Who were the persons that constituted the report committee & which persons constituted the approval board? Like I earlier stated, the index by its name is one side of the corruption assessment of a country & does not seem to take other factors into consideration in the fight against corruption such as political will, return of funds that cannot be accounted for & those looted from the treasury or proceeds of bribes or kick backs. The index does not seem to take into account the performance of the Anti-Corruption agencies compared to such performance in previous years, the Index does take into account better performance of ministries, departments & agencies in making returns to the federation account in excess of more than ten times compared to previous years, it does not take into account better utilisation of scarce public funds some of which are accounted for & returned to the federation account instead of being squandered or wasted by public officers. 
What Transparency International should rightly do is to commission another assessment of the country to cover other areas the Corruption Perception Index did not look into, that will be the just thing to do. I am sure if the commission another assessment they will discover another side to the Corruption status of the country. They will discover that many public officials are now afraid of taking brides, that millions of Nigerians have expressed public support for the government anti corruption agenda & are changing their ways, they will discover that recovered loots are being used to fund the budget and provide food on the table  of many poor Nigerians, they will discover that funds illegally held by previous administrations has been shared to states.
Ben Usang 
Is a Social Development Advocacy experts, and Social Commentator. He writes from Calabar