Nathaniel
The Nigerian ruling party has called for one-term limits on the president and governors, in a effort they say will limit election-year strife in a country that has seen plenty of it.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the same political party that controls the Nigerian presidency as and a majority of seats in the legislature,has just recommended “a single tenure of seven and six years respectively for the President and state governors in the country.” This is the same party that not long ago vowed to rule Nigeria for the next 60 years and secured power in a violent 2007 election that observers claimed were deeply flawed.
The party's National Chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, says that elections “tend to be more acrimonious, contentious and even violent when the country is transiting from one Government to another,” and that having single tenures will reduce the “incumbency factor”—obstacles to free and fair elections when incumbents seeking re-election are challenged by strong candidates and, therefore, rely on rigging, violence, and other illicit activities to maintain power.
This actually may not be a bad idea…at least on the surface. But my gut tells me that the PDP has other motives for increasing presidential and gubernatorial tenures than the party’s concern for election integrity. Or maybe I’m being too pessimistic; after all, the Nigerian government did call for the postponment of elections in Zimbabwe. Still, my gut is telling me that Prince Ogbulafor is not spilling his guts.
When PDP ends the automatic immunity-from-prosecution for Nigerian elected officials, we'll be more impressed.
Read more in the Global Integrity Report: Nigeria.
-- by Stephen Roblin --
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Nigeria: Ruling Party Wants a Term Limit
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Nigeria: Asset Disclosures? No Worries.
The Vanguard newspaper in Lagos highlights a discouraging trend of Nigerian lawmakers declaring greater personal assets than they currently posses in order to build in a cushion that accounts for corrupt gains while in office. When those asset disclosures are finally reviewed years later, the inflated numbers sadly match reality.
The article mentions how the lack of a Freedom of Information bill in Nigeria hinders public access to asset disclosures, a situation further compounded by the Official Secrets Act. Official Secrets Acts across many Commonwealth nations are an unfortunate legacy of the British colonial period that provide officials with an easy excuse to withhold information from the public. We have seen this time and again in our work in Commonwealth countries around the world as well as in the UK itself, where the Act continues to undermine public access to government information.
A related tidbit picked up in Global Integrity's 2007 assessment of Nigeria: part of the problem with the Nigerian asset disclosure system has to do with classic bureaucratic inertia: the Code of Conduct Bureau claims that the National Assembly has the power to enact legislation making such disclosures regularly public, but the Assembly has never taken action to implement this authority. I can't imagine why.
As more organizations (including the World Bank's Doing Business initiative) begin to focus on tracking asset disclosure mechanisms around the world, we can only hope that some additional attention paid to this issue raises awareness over the need to focus on implementation, auditing of, and citizen access to asset disclosures, not just pretty laws on the books.
Doing Business plans to present some initial findings at a brownbag at the World Bank on Thursday May 15 for anyone interested (Room MC 9-100, 12:30-2:00 PM).
Update: The Doing Business Transparency questionaire (PDF).
Monday, February 4, 2008
Nigeria: A study in patronage
Our friends at the Initiative of Public Policy Analysis, based in Lagos, have an analysis of the government's failed efforts to jumpstart the local concrete industry in Nigeria by restricting imports. Reading this, I am struck by how fuzzy the lines between failed-but-well-intentioned economic policy and state-capture can be. However, the analysis concludes:
License-or quota-based importation in whatever form effectively limits the powers of the market to operate efficiently. It creates distortions and diverts resources allocation. Resources that could be used to enhance local output are diverted into political patronage to compete for import licenses. Lifting the ban on bagged cement is at best a short-term remedy, not a long-term measure that can potentially achieve competition and lower prices. Indeed, the history of cement importation in Nigeria suggests that the latest is a familiar tune to reward political patronage...
Read the full analysis: Part One. Part Two.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Clean Elections No Guarantee of Strong Democratic Society
New Report Assesses Anti-Corruption Mechanisms and Government Accountability in 55 Countries, Including First Investigation of
(Washington D.C.) – Although elections are often touted as the linchpin of governance reform efforts around the world, a new report finds long-term benefits offered by elections are often undermined by a lack of government accountability and the absence of strong anti-corruption mechanisms. The report, a major investigative study of 55 countries, was released today by Global Integrity, an international nonprofit organization that tracks global governance and corruption trends.
“We have to stop using elections as a simplistic litmus test for a government’s commitment to democracy,” said Global Integrity’s Managing Director Nathaniel Heller. “We now know there is little linkage between elections and the much tougher reforms that must be made, especially in countries at political crossroads such as Pakistan, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kenya.”
The Global Integrity Report: 2007 covers most of the Group of 8 (G8) countries as well as dozens of the world’s emerging markets and developing nations, from Argentina to China to Zambia. Rather than try and measure corruption directly, the report investigates and assesses the government accountability mechanisms and transparency measures needed to prevent corruption and promote good governance.
Many of the findings of the report should be sobering for policy makers and investors alike. The weaknesses found in China’s anti-corruption framework, for example, raise questions as to the true risks facing investors rushing to capitalize on the country’s economic boom– and to the risks Chinese investment funds pose to Western markets. “China’s lack of strong anti-corruption mechanisms could soon be to foreign investment what subprime mortgages have been to the U.S. economy,” stated Heller. “The message from our report to investors should sound a lot like ‘buyer beware’.”
Other major findings of the report include the following:
· The US and other G8 countries suffer from many of the same corruption challenges as developing countries, especially in election and campaign financing. While many observers tend to assume that wealthier countries have developed to a point where corruption is no longer a problem, Global Integrity’s 2007 data for the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada paints a decidedly different picture.
· Despite the conventional wisdom that changes in governance and anti-corruption performance take many years to manifest themselves, several countries exhibited significant improvements or backsliding from 2006 to 2007. The biggest gainers in the past year were Bulgaria, Nepal and Azerbaijan; Nigeria and Georgia were the countries that experienced the greatest declines.
· Poor ratings for several close allies of the United States highlight the challenges the U.S. faces in promoting democratic reforms in countries where it has competing security interests. The report found that countries like Pakistan and Georgia posted ‘weak’ or ‘very weak’ ratings for many of the anti-corruption, accountability and transparency indicators.
· A widespread lack of government accountability among foreign aid recipients presents serious dilemmas for Western and multilateral aid agencies. Despite a growing awareness by aid donors of the need to direct aid to non-governmental stakeholders, like civil society groups, aid agencies continue working primarily with the very same executive branches that are often hindering democratic reforms.
“This report should be a roadmap for change and a wake-up call to policy makers, investors, and aid donors around the globe,” said Global Integrity’s International Director, Marianne Camerer. “It’s also a take-action toolkit for public officials and citizens who want to fight corruption and increase government accountability.”
The report is the product of months of on-the-ground reporting and data gathering by a team of more than 250 in-country journalists and researchers who prepared more than a million words of text and 20,000 data points for their respective countries. Twenty-four countries were repeated from Global Integrity’s 2006 assessments, while 31 were newly assessed.
To access the Global Integrity Report: 2007, please visit http://report.globalintegrity.org. For more information about the organization, visit http://www.globalintegrity.org. Global Integrity is an independent, non-profit organization tracking governance and corruption trends around the world. Global Integrity works with local teams of researchers and journalists to monitor openness and accountability. Its data and reporting are used routinely by aid donors, governments, grassroots advocates, and investors to prioritize governance challenges in countries and develop roadmaps for reform.
Global Integrity is grateful to the Legatum Institute for Global Development ( www.ligd.org) for its continued support of Global Integrity’s work. LIGD is an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organisation within the Legatum group of companies (www.legatum.com). The Institute’s mission is to research and promote those principles that drive the creation of global prosperity and the expansion of human liberty and well-being, including the rule of law, transparency, and accountable government as the pillars of a prosperous and free society. Other supporters of the Global Integrity Report: 2007 were the Australian Agency for International Development, the Wallace Global Fund, and the World Bank.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Why institutions matter
Writing for The Nation (Nigeria), Global Integrity contributor Thompson Ayodele calls to focus on shared institutions, not individual failings, when understanding corruption:
Rather than personifying the war of corruption, it is imperative to build effective institutions that would expose corrupt individuals and ensure that they do not escape justice. The difference between a country where there is a low level of corruption and a country where corruption constitutes huge problem can be explained by the quality of the shared rules and the institutions which coordinate individuals. Some countries adhere to rules which engender trust among public office holders and provide the incentive to perform. Others have rules system that allow officials to milk public purse and further deprive their citizens the fruits of risk taking efforts. Human beings anywhere depend on the right kind of institutional system.Read the rest at The Nation.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Nigerian Anti-Corruption Chief to Resign
Our own contacts in Nigeria confirm that Ribadu's departure is a blow to the country's fight against corruption.