- A new survey by SERAP has ranked the police as the most corrupt public institution in Nigeria at 63%
- The report said that a bribe is paid in 54% interaction with the police out of every 100% police interaction
- The power sector came second place on the list of the five most corrupt institutions with 49%
A new public survey released by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) on Tuesday, March 26, reported high levels of corruption in public institutions in Nigeria for the past five years.
The police came first as one of the five major public institutions placed under study, while the power sector was the second most corrupt in the country on the list, Vanguard reports.
Other public institutions identified as corrupt by 70% of Nigerians who responded to the survey are the health, judiciary and education ministries, with the report saying nothing has changed in the last five years.
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The corruption ranking was contained in a report the SERAP titled 'Nigeria: Corruption Perception Survey' which was delivered at the Sheraton Hotels, Lagos, on Tuesday, March 26.
The report partly read: “A bribe is paid in 54% of interactions with the police. In fact, there is a 63% probability that an average Nigerian would be asked to pay a bribe each time he or she interacted with the police. That is almost two out of three.”
The chair of the report launch, Professor Akin Oyebode, said though Nigerian is seen as the giant of the continent, it is still burdened by corruption, as could be seen in the free and fair election it could not hold
He said: “Nigeria is looked upon as a giant of Africa. Yet Nigeria could not conduct free, fair and credible elections. It is a smear on the image of Nigeria. If we do away with selective enforcement and condonation of corruption, we will build and live in a better society.
"Corruption is a refined form of stealing. The politicians are stealing our common patrimony. Development of the people is almost inversely proportional to the level of corruption."
The report also showed how Nigerians have to bribe their ways through to access basic public services like healthcare, education, power, among others.
It said: “Corruption remains a significant impediment to law enforcement, access to justice and basic public services such as affordable healthcare, education, and electricity supply. Several Nigerians have to pay a bribe to access police, judiciary, power, education and health services.
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"Corruption is still a key concern in the country with 70% of Nigerians describing the level of corruption as high and in the same measure, stating that corruption levels either increased or remained the same in the last five years.
“The national survey carried out between September and December 2018, covered the police, judiciary, power, education and health sectors to assess the state of corruption in law enforcement and public service provision."
Another part of the report showed how the police force ranked high among other corrupt public institutions and how this has affected public service delivery in the country.
It added: “Bribery experiences were interrogated and recorded in the key sectors of education, health, the police, judiciary and power.
"Data analysis was conducted under five different and interrelated variables. There was a 63% probability that an average Nigerian would be asked to pay a bribe each time he/she interacted with the police. The likelihood of bribery in the power sector stood at 49%.
"With the chances of encountering bribery at the judiciary, education and health services standing at 27%, 25% and 20% respectively.
“The police were the most adversely ranked on this indicator. For every 100 police interactions reported by the respondents, there was a bribe paid in 54 interactions. The prevalence levels stood at 37% in the power sector and 18% in education,1 7.7% in the judiciary and 14% in the health sector.”
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the Police Service Commission (PSC) said it was yet to begin the screening of applicants who applied for recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force.
The commission received 315,032 applications at the close of the portal on January 11 for an advertised 10,000 vacancy.
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