Nigeria has been ranked 140th position out of 180 countries in the world on the 2024 corruption perceptions index, according to a report by Transparency International.
The TI’s latest ranking released on Tuesday sees the continent’s most populous nation move up 5 spots when compared with 2023 ‘s report and 10 spots as against 2022’s report.
Denmark emerged as the least corrupt country with 90 points with fellow Nordic country Finland coming in second with 88 points, and Singapore in third with 84 points.
However, countries that made the most corrupt list in the world were South Sudan, Somalia, and Venezuela.
It was observed that no African country made the top 10 as it was dominated by European countries.
Based on the report, Uganda, Mexico, Madagascar, Iraq, and Cameroon shared the same spot with Nigeria with a total score of 26 points.
In the African category, Cape Verde topped the list of least corrupt countries, although it was ranked number 35 with 62 points.
“The 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows that corruption is a dangerous problem in every part of the world, but change for the better is happening in many countries,” the chair of Transparency International, Francois Valeria, said.
“Research also reveals that corruption is a major threat to climate action. It hinders progress in reducing emissions and adapting to the unavoidable effects of global heating.
“The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories worldwide by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The results are given on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).”
To Valeria, while 32 countries have significantly reduced their corruption levels since 2012, there’s still a huge amount of work to be done – 148 countries have stayed stagnant or gotten worse during the same period.
“The global average of 43 has also stood still for years, while over two-thirds of countries score below 50. Billions of people live in countries where corruption destroys lives and undermines human rights,” he said.
