THE PLACE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE FIGHT

AGAINST CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

Wara Yusuf Abubakar
Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi,
Siyaset ve Sosyal Bilimler Bölümü
 The Aim of the Study
• The aim of the study is to point out how Civil Society
organizations greatly contribute to the fight against
corruption in Nigeria.
• To adopt functional approach and interpretive
analysis to justify what CSOs are doing and can do
in anti-corruption crusade.
• To prove that CSOs are playing significant roles in
the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
• To justify the fact that in spite of these roles played
by the CSOs there are still much to be done.
• To suggest some more practical approaches to be
use by CSOs in fighting corruption.
 Material and Methods
• This research placed more emphasis on functional
approach, that focuses on the macro-level of social
structure that interprets each part of society in terms
of how it contributes to the stability of the whole
society.
• The functional approach along with interpretive
analysis is adopted to explain what CSOs can do or
are doing in curbing the nagging problem of
corruption in Nigeria.

• The study is founded on the assumption that

whether CSOs have role to play in the fight against
corruption in a society.
 Main Outputs
• It is vital to state that Civil Society Organizations
CSOs otherwise known as the “third sector” have
become a gargantuan tool for promoting
transparency, societal peace, progress, development
and stability.

• One of the areas where Civil Society takes a bold

step in ensuring transparency in modern society is
fighting bribery and corruption.
• They help in eradicating the menace of corruption
through advocacy, research, monitoring,
demonstration, partnership, informing, reporting,
advising and calling for policy formulation and
taking legal action approaches.
• In Nigeria It is important to note that the 2018
Transparency International Global Corruption Perception
Index (CPI) ranks Nigeria as the 36th most corrupt country
globally. Nigeria was placed in 144th position out of the
180 countries assessed with a score of 27%. Just along
side Kenya, Mauritania, Bangladesh, Comoros and CAF.

• In the Country, as Akinyemi noted corruption range from

direct diversion of public funds to private pockets,
contract overpricing, bribery, impunity, nepotism,
financial recklessness, duplicitous borrowing and debt
management, public assets striping, electoral fraud,
shielding of corrupt public officers to mention just a few.

• CSOs in Nigeria and in most countries have been

performing some vital functions with aim of ending afore
mentioned and other corruption examples in the society.
• Starting with advocacy approach, through
conferences, congresses and rallies CSOs speak out
against the ‘wanton’ act and advocate for
transparent public funding which is option for
combating the practices of abusing state resources
and plutocratic funding that fuels the financial
corruption of politics.
• It was also observed that in Nigeria Civil Society
think tanks carry out numerous research in order to
find out how to deal with a particular issue and
improve the well-being of a society in general.
Corruption which is very difficult to deal with
requires several approaches and methodologies
which can only be identify through research.
• One of the effective way of tackling corruption at the
level of civil society is monitoring the public and
private office holders and critically access their
transparency and accountability level.
• In Nigeria, civil society organizations watch and
monitor elections with the sole aim of ensuring
credible elections that will produce transparent
leaders. The scope and quality of participation by
civil society organizations has extended significantly
in the country: Four other large civil society - the
Labor Election Monitoring Team; the Federation of
Muslim Women's Associations of Nigeria
(FOMWAN), the Muslim League for Accountability
(MULLAC); and the Justice, Development and Peace
Commission of the Catholic Church (JDPC) have
been monitoring election in the country since 2003.
• Another approach to curtailing corruption by CSOs
in Nigeria are Demonstration/ Call for accountability/
Criticize
• In January 2012, in coalition with other civil society
groups, the NLC and TUC championed street
protests across major cities over the
mismanagement of fuel subsidy regime.
• However, primordial and social groups in Nigeria such
as the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), the Middle Belt
Forum (MBF), Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) and
Ohaneze Ndigbo pursue a contractionary policy in
curbing corruption. Occasionally they lashed out at
the excesses of the members of the political class and
call on them to exercise restraint while indulging in
their own excesses.
• Through social capital creation civil society were able
to cooperate in the fight against corruption in most
part of the world. In Nigeria for instance the non-
governmental groups are able to form a strong
coalition against corruption such as the Zero
Corruption Coalition (ZCC) which is a network of over
100 civil society organizations campaigning against
corruption in Nigeria. There is also a group known as
the Civil Society Network Against Corruption, CSNAC
and Integrity Independent Advocacy Project (IAP)
•Civil societies make corruption cases public through
publication of articles in the national newspapers and
organizing conferences and congresses to enlighten and
inform the general public on the nature of corruption within
the polity

•On the advisory function, Religious groups in Nigeria such

as Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Pentecostal
Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), and Ja’amatu Nasril Islam (JNI)
are playing some ambivalent role in the management of
corruption. They persistently sermonize against perceived
immoral conducts, occasionally lashed out on public
functionaries for their excesses and those acts they defined
as unholy.
•In terms of anti-corruption policy formulation, In Nigeria, it is
important to point out that civil society group’s involvement
in the fight against corruption through protests,
demonstrations, litigations and active lobbying helped in the
drafting and passage of the Appropriation Acts, Public
Procurement Act, Money Laundering Act, the Freedom of
Information Act and the Whistle-blower Act.

•For Example, within the country organized professional

groups that includes The Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ)
and Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) supports the
implementation of anti-corruption reform through provision
of information about unethical conducts of some public
officials and ensuring that government complies with their
anti-corruption commitment.
•Although in Nigeria CSOs have been active in anti-
corruption crusade, For example, Transparency In Nigeria in
its commitment to ensuring fiscal discipline ranks states in
Nigeria annually. Similarly, The Legal Defence and
Assistance Project (LEDAP), a legal right group, as part of its
commitment to anticorruption crusade has identified security
votes and local government allocations as the two windows
through which state-executives steal public treasure. It had
approached a Federal High Court in Lagos to seek its order to
compel the Accountants-General of the 36 states in the
country to release information on security votes taken by the
state governors and other political officeholders. Also,
Centre for Anti Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL)
has been constantly mounting pressure on the anti-
corruption agencies such as the judiciary, EFCC, and ICPC to
arrest and prosecute the corrupt elements in Nigeria....but
there are still more to be done....
 Conclusion and Recommendation
As a result of the fact that corruption remains a
gargantuan grudge in Nigeria like any other
developing country despite the efforts of the Civil
Societies, this article suggested that there is more to
be done owing to that recommends the followings:
Protecting advocates, reporters, experts and victims
of corruption in the society. Civil Societies can do
these by seeking legal redress, organizing national
protest and calling for nation-wide strike whenever
an anti-corruption agent is been witch hunted.
Infiltration approach; which is an action to secretly
become part of a group in order to get information or
to influence the way that group thinks or behaves
• CSOs can have secret agents within the vital and strategic
organizations in the country that will be feeding them in
clandestine ways of all the corruption cases taken place in
the organization. By so doing they can always obtain vital
information on corruption related issues and communicate
them to the anti-corruption authorities in the country.
• They should also give awards to well-done anti-corruption
experts for a fabulous job done. However, evaluation of the
performance of anti-corruption agencies and institution in
Nigeria should also be among the roles of anti-corruption
CSOs countrywide.

• Deducing from all we have discussed we can conclude that

in the contemporary world Civil Society Organisations
have become a giant instrument of not only ensuring
transparent society and societal development but also
promoters of peace and unity.
Thank You For
Listening