Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that Nigeria’s corruption rating under incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari has worsened than it was under his own administration.
The Bayelsa-born ex-president made this known in “My Transition Hours,” his recently published book that he launched at a well-attended book launch in Abuja on Tuesday.
In the book, Jonathan wrote, “It is important to note that despite the many sensational stories, dramatic arrests, seizures and accusations, many of them false, since I left office, the fact remains that Nigeria has not made any improvement on TI Corruption Perception Index since 2014.
“In fact, the 2017 CPI released in 2018 by TI places Nigeria as number 148, a retrogression in which the nation went 12 place backward. In other words, Nigeria is more corrupt in 2017 than it was when I handed over to Buhari administration in 2015.
“Some people may be misled with smoke and mirrors but the TI Corruption Perception Index relies on unsentimental facts and figures.”
He added that his administration initiated several policies to check the menace of corruption, including the Electronic Wallet Initiative, which he said helped the Federal Ministry of Agriculture prevent fertiliser scam and save the nation $192 million in 2012.
He added that the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) developed and implemented by his administration enabled the government to flush out 50,000 ghost federal workers and save the country N15 billion monthly.
Jonathan stressed that these and many more similar policies helped Nigeria rank 136th out of 144 ranked nations in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 2014, the nation’s best ever ranking.
According to him, “This was an improvement from the nation’s previous position of 144th in 2013, 139th in 2012 and 143rd in 2011.”
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