CORRUPTION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE CHALLENGE IN NIGERIA: WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING RIGHT?

Abstract

Nigeria, like many countries of the world, is bedeviled by the challenge of corruption and good governance and it appearsthat Nigeria and indeed African countries are the most battered of these two concepts. While corruption tears down a nation,good governance builds and can serve as a check on corruption. Unfortunately, good governance continues to elude Nigeriafrom the military era to over twenty years of civil rule. This has encouraged the lack of development the country is facingsince its independence in 1960, even in the face of its rich natural and human resources. The hazards posed by corruptionand poor governance have distorted the balance in all the sectors. This has made successive governments adopt variousstrategies to fight the menace of corruption in the past decades. However, despite all measures, which include good legaland institutional frameworks, the war against corruption in Nigeria continues to be a mirage and quite unrealistic. Thisraises the question of what are we not doing right in the fight against corruption in Nigeria? To answer this question, thisresearch is divided into three broad Parts. Part A gives a general idea of the concepts of corruption and good governance;Part B tries to review some of our practices in the fight against corruption from the military era till date. And Part Cidentifies certain failures in the ways we are fighting corruption in Nigeria. Based on these, certain recommendations areformulated, which include a re-orientation on how Nigerians see corruption.