Lukman accuses TI, CSOs perception of CPI 2020 as anti-APC smear campaign

*Says good criminal justice system ‘ll save Nigeria from negative anti – corruption ratings

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Salihu Lukman has faulted a global socio – economic rating body, Transparency International (TI) over its 2020 report of Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which claimed that Nigeria scored 25 out of 100 points and one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranking 149 out of 183.

While submitting that the rating by the TI was politically motivated, he knocked some members of the Nigerian civil society for corroborating the smear campaign by the TI to discredit the President Muhammadu Buhari – led APC administration.

Lukman who is the Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) on Tuesday in a personal statement that does not represent the view of any APC Governor or the Progressive Governors Forum said an improvement on the nation’s criminal justice administration will save Nigeria from negative perception of her anti – graft campaign.

He insisted that the CPI report aimed at rubbishing the Buhari administration saying “where perception is to be our guide, we should be able to confirm it with evidence of reality. If TI can conveniently rely on perception, any serious Nigerian organisation should be able to corroborate perception with empirical cases of corruption.

“If one is to interpret the Nigeria CPI 2020 report, the conclusion is that the current government of APC under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari has lost the fight against corruption.

“For us to be able to fight against corruption, based on the ‘perception by Nigerian businesses and country experts’, there has to be a change of government. This is the underlying narrative in the CPI report. It is basically more of a political campaign, if your like for 2023.

“Nigerians, including local leaders of civil society groups and their international partners are free to make their political choices and decisions. But they should be transparent about it.

It mustn’t be a case of shadowboxing Nigerian citizens and forcing them to kowtow political choices fraudulently contrived because Nigerian citizens are committed to the fight against corruption!”

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According to him, such a damning report should be disturbing to every Nigerian, including the President whose government prioritises the fight against corruption to have been condemn in the way the CPI report did.

He said “given that it is a report of “perception by Nigerian businesses and country experts on the level of corruption in the public sector”, it is important to engage the issue beyond the media campaign going on, which may only be gaining prominence because of the widespread sentiments of Nigerians that every government initiative promote corrupt practices and every public official is corrupt. With or without the 2020 CPI report, this is the belief of most Nigerians.

“Therefore, the 2020 CPI report only help to advance the gullibility of most Nigerians with a report of survey of ‘perception by Nigerian businesses and country experts.’

He said the report failed to take into account initiatives of government in the fight against corruption is taken into account.

“For instance, if bribes are collected by government officials, irrespective of whether it was as a result of demand by public officials or proactively done to secure contracts, to what extent are they being arrested?

Are there prosecutions? How many arrests and prosecutions were there in 2020 for instance? What is the impact of arrests and prosecutions on the campaign against corruption in the country? Were there cases that should have been arrested but were not? Were there cases of poor prosecution?

“These should have ordinarily been the issues that should serve as the focus of public debates with recommendations of what needs to be done in order to strengthen the fight against corruption in the country.

“Instead, all that we have in the 2020 CPI report are alleged lack of transparency in Covid-19 pandemic responses, nepotism in public service appointment, lack of adequate anti-corruption legal frameworks and interference by politicians in the operation of law enforcement agencies, prevalence of bribery and extortion in the Nigerian police and security sector corruption.

“Without evidence to validate these allegations, any conclusion will be highly subjective”

Lukman said the claim about lack of adequate anti-corruption legal frameworks is outrightly false in today’s Nigeria and appear that this is most likely reproduced from old reports of CPI before all the anti-corruption laws that led to emergence of EFCC, ICPC, etc. since 2001.

He suggested that the issue of legal framework in the case of Nigeria should be about reviewing existing laws so as to strengthen the capacity of the country’s anti-corruption agencies to fight corruption and the need to streamline these agencies to make them more efficient.

“Largely because the CPI report is not about evidential cases of the fight against corruption, sadly, the only issue in the Nigerian media is largely opinion. As a nation, we need to go beyond opinions of individuals.

Why should any serious assessment of the fight against corruption in Nigeria not be informed by the reality that there are more 16 high profile cases of corruption trial on-going? All the 16 cases are started within the last 5 years under the current administration.

“This is a matter that would require some reform of our criminal justice system. Without securing judgement leading to conviction of corrupt public officials, the fight against corruption will be weak in the country. This is not a focus of the CPI.

“The challenge bordering on the management of our criminal justice system would appear to be responsible for the embarrassing situation whereby although judgements were secured in some corruption cases in Nigeria, which include the cases of Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu and Chief Olisah Metuh, they were reversed by Courts of Appeal and retrial ordered.

“These instances of reversal of judgements may confirm cases of interferences by politicians. However, fair assessment of such interferences would have exonerated the government because while in the case Sen. Kalu, he is a member of APC, Chief Metuh is a member of the PDP.

“To further confirm that Nigerian anti-corruption agencies are not being partisan in the country’s anti-corruption war, just on Tuesday, January 26, 2021, Federal High Court, Abuja ordered the final forfeiture of over $600,000 belonging to former Governor of Zamfara State, Alh. Abdulaziz Yari. Alh. Yari is a member of APC who is being prosecuted by the ICPC.

APC being the governing party, if the case of political interference in which the party and the federal government are to be guilty, the case of Alh. Yari would have confirmed it”, he said justifying genuineness of government’s anti – graft war .

He concluded by saying that “while it is important to stress that no government can be perfect and no government can successfully eliminate corruption, the CPI 2020 report on Nigeria present a very bad approach to engage the Nigerian government in the fight against corruption.

It is a poor attempt to politicise the fight against corruption largely because it completely ignores all the empirical cases that should have provide objective indicators for the performance of Nigerian government”.