ABSTRACT
Nigeria: Corruption has been identified as one of the most aggrieving concepts hampering human and economic progress in developing countries; a finding particularly relevant to the Nigerian case. Corruption exacerbates economic growth, reduces economic efficiency and development despite the availability of enormous human and natural resources in the country of investigation. The cardinal thrust of the present paper is to inquire about corruption in the Nigerian context under appreciation of the country’s recent, present and anticipated political, demographical and economic development. Particular tribute was paid to the assessment of phenomenon specific causes and effects arising and resulting from corruption. The present dissertation seeks to examine the causal relationships between corruption, income inequality and poverty. To this avail the researcher combined findings deduced from the standard corruption theory (Klitgaard’s basic corruption formula) with results obtained from quantitative research under inclusion of critical psychological factors facilitating occurrence of corruption as observed at and affecting virtually all levels and sectors of the Nigerian society. Particular attention was paid to contemporary factors, affecting occurrence and explaining different levels of corruption, such as colonial heritage and religious conditioning, with the latter identified as major contemporary element; a variable providing for incriminating evidence about corruption, academically and context specifically, however, infrequently evaluated.
Popular corruption perception indices served as basing point for the in-depth inquiry of frequencies, perceptions and corruption experiences on the part of the Nigerian populous. Corruption experiences were identified as context specific drivers, with the latter accounting for and reflecting the true levels of corruption within a society; as ‑corruption experience- stands for the sum of frequencies plus corruption perceptions.
Hence, corruption experiences reflect the total amount of corruption within a given society, which is expressed and measurable via experiences by the affected citizenry, rather than based on corruption perceptions, which conceptually suffer from lack in explanatory power due to the fact, that indices based on corruption perception solely measure the aspect of perceived levels of public sector corruption. Thus, the present paper focuses on capturing on experienced levels of corruption and their implications towards successful decrease or the reasons for persistence of corruption, income inequalities and poverty.
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Public debates recently in Nigeria have centred on the increasing rate of corruption resulting from inappropriate public finance planning and implementation mostly in some of the developing countries, Nigeria inclusive which in turn reduce the level of economic growth in the country. Corruption made itself visible when the institution of the government was founded due the behaviour of people
appoint or elect to manage the government institutions (Anyanwu, 2002; Idomeh, 2006). Corruption has recently become a major issue in foreign aid and Nigeria nation as a whole. Corruption is an ancient practice that has been traced back to pre-biblical time and made itself known in the ancient civilizations of
developed and developing countries. Political and social corruption is not a recent phenomenon that pervades the Nigerian state. Corruption is a social problem that has interested many scholars. Ruzindana (1999) sees corruption in Africa as a problem of routine deviation from affordable standards and norms by public officials and parties with whom they interact.
The major concern for inter-nation aid policy during the last five decades has been to improve the living condition for the poor in the poorest countries of the world. But governments in poor countries are also the most corrupt country due to high level of poverty. Treisman (2000) and Paldam (1999) cited in Jens and Odd-Helge (2001) states that the level of GDP per capital holds most of the explanatory power of the various corruption indicators. Corruption is a disease, which eats into the cultural, political and economic growth of any country and as well destroys the functioning of various organs of the government. Transparently international (2005) opine that “corruption is one of the greatest challenges of the contemporary world which undermines good government, fundamentally distorts public policy, leads to the misallocation of resources harms the private sector development and as well hurts the poor”.
Statement of the problem
The need to study corruption and economic growth in Nigeria has continued to generate passionate commentaries and academic interest due to the level of corruption in the country and its effect on economic growth. In Nigeria corruption is one of the reasons for many unresolved problems that have critically hobbled and reduce development (Ayobolu, 2006). It also remains a long-term major political and economic growth challenge for Nigeria (Sachs, 2007). International centre for economic growth (1999) states that corruption is a canker worm that has eaten deep in the fabric of the nation which
ranges from petty corruption to
political or systematic corruption. Abiodem (2007) in World Bank studies put corruption at over $1 trillion per year accounting for up to 15% of the Gross Domestic Product of nation like Nigeria.
Corruption is a canker worm that has reduced development in
all sectors of the economy (EFCC, 2005). Corruption has been the primary reason behind the country difficulties in developing fast (ICPC, 2006). Ribadu, (2003) states that this is the reason why transparency international has consisted rating of Nigeria as one of the top three most corrupt countries in the world
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