Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, described the report as an indictment on Nigerians and not on President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Presidency has blamed Nigerians for the country’s poor ranking on Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perception Index.
Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, described the report as an indictment on Nigerians and not on President Muhammadu Buhari.
SaharaReporters had reported how Nigeria dropped three places and scored lower in points than in the previous year’s record regarding corruption rating.
The fresh TI CPI says Nigeria scored 25/100 which is one point less than its 26 points in the previous year.
It says Nigeria is now 149 out of 180 countries, a record that is three steps lower than its rank of 146 in 2019.
However, speaking on the ranking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Monday, Shehu said, “I’ll tell you that this one by TI is not a judgment on Buhari or his administration or its war against corruption, I will tell you that this one is judgement on Nigerians because if you look at the indices, they used at arriving at these conclusions, they used eight indices, six of which showed Nigeria as being more or less Nigeria in the same position.
“The two that they dwelled on, that caused this backslide, are essentially Nigerian problems. They’re talking about the political culture of this country, vote-buying, thuggery. Is it Buhari that is a thug? We’re not doing thuggery.
“And when they talk about the justice sector, they are talking about perceived corruption in the judiciary. These perceptions are essentially not correct. Yes, there are issues in that sector but so many changes are going on in that sector wouldn’t it have been nice if they acknowledged it so that you encourage those judicial officers that are upright and then the system gets better.”