Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that the level of corruption in the country has reached alarming and potentially fatal stages.
He made this statement during his keynote address on the topic of ‘Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria,’ delivered at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University in New Haven, United States, over the weekend.
Obasanjo highlighted that corruption remains one of the most significant issues facing the Nigerian people.
“More than N700 billion in cash bribes were paid by citizens to public officials in 2023. Most bribes are paid in the street or in a public official’s office. Private sector bribery is increasing but continues to be less prevalent than in the public sector. Corruption goes with power; therefore to hold any useful discussion of corruption, we must first locate it where it properly belongs – in the ranks of the powerful. Corruption in Nigeria has passed the alarming and entered the fatal stage; and Nigeria will die if we keep pretending that she is only slightly indisposed.
Ranked 150 out of 180 countries in the Transparency International 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index,1 Nigeria’s ranking places it in the bottom 20 percent of the Comity of Nations and illustrates how systemic and embedded corruption is in the country. It is, in my opinion, and those of many, the most serious developmental challenge to the nation.”
However, Obasanjo offered a glimmer of hope, stating that the country can overcome these challenges and emerge stronger if it tackles issues of immorality and corruption head-on.
In his speech, Obasanjo referenced a short, classic treatise from 1983, “The Trouble with Nigeria” by Chinua Achebe, acknowledging that the root of Nigeria’s troubles is, indeed, a failure of leadership.
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