confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Nigeria's Graft Domestic Product
Blue Lines
In time for the start of the election campaign season, Matthew
Page of Chatham House has produced a compelling analysis of
the 'Taxonomy for Corruption in Nigeria' for the
Carnegie Foundation. Page offers a detailed guide to the types and
mechanics of corruption in Nigeria whose common feature is the theft of
public resources. It is a useful corrective to the blaming and shaming
between rival parties ahead of next February's elections.
Page's taxonomy starts with a claim that 75% of journalists have
accepted 'financial gifts' and that some media companies have received
millions of dollars from ruling parties. It reports that the 2015
elections cost US$550 million to organise and the rival parties spent
$2 billion. Almost all of that, most via criminal means, came from the
public purse. Within government, corruption takes money from social
investments, with the country's health and education services in
continuing decline.
At the heart of the system is the oil and gas industry which
generates most of the revenues that are stolen. The taxonomy also looks
at trade-related corruption, how tariffs and import bans can benefit
local monopolists. It has less to say about deliberate trade mispricing
though which the experts at Global Financial Integrity reckon that
Nigeria loses several billion dollars each year. Alongside sections on
judicial and police corruption, the taxonomy refers to anti-corruption
corruption; how the country's anti-graft agencies have served the ends
of their political masters.
