| Corruption is the greatest problem of mankind today in the World; it is the"virus"that breeds on the economies of Nations. It is the cause of all the problemsfaced by humanity: poverty, diseases, scarcity of available resources, absence of goodgovernance, violence, assassinations, robbery etc. The devastating effects ofcorruption has attracted both National and International governments hence, theintroduction of anti-corruption initiatives to curb corruption in the world.Nigeria as a nation in the world and also one amongst the worst bitten bycorruption, at its return to democratic rule in1999embarked on the formulation ofanti-corruption policies to tackle the issue of corruption which was thenunprecedented in the country. Therefore, in this study we endeavored to analyzethese anti-corruption policies, pointing out areas of achievements, strength andweaknesses for other countries to borrow a lift and as well learn from their flaws.The analysis reveals that corruption is very active in Nigeria affectin g all segmentsand fabrics of her society. All types and forms of corruption are in existence in Nigeriabut for easy comprehension and analysis, the types of corruption are grouped intothree-fold of Political, Bureaucratic and Economic/Financial corrupti ons.With this high rate of corruption, the anti-corruption policies or initiatives putup by the Nigerian government are timely and had enormous powers to curbcorruption in the country. Every sector of the system prone to corruption has laws toregulate its operations in a bid to be transparent and accountable. Theanti-corruption mechanisms to fight corruption in Nigeria are well equipped andprepared to fight corruption but lack the strong political will to implement thesemechanisms. The anti-corruption agencies encountered serious political interferencefrom political leaders which hampered on the discharge of their duties andconsequently reduced their success and level of achievements.In order to enable anti-corruption agencies to function and achieve the purposefor which they are established and win the fight against corruption, some applicablerecommendations from Nigeria’s anti-corruption strategy are presented in chapter fiveof this study, one of such recommendation is using what we call th e anti-dotes tocorruption presented in this formula, which are:Political Will+Anti-corruption Policies+Anti-corruption Agencies+Special Anti-corruption Courts+Capital Punishment–Corruption=Good Governance.Applying these anti-dotes must be very severe and forceful in accordance with theConstitution of the Nation.In addition, the fight against corruption is not something that can be done bythe effort of a single nation but a combination of experiences from other countries thus;lessons were drawn from the success story of Singapore and Botswana anti-corruptioninitiatives. This research is composed of five distinctive Chapters:Chapter One opens with an overview of the study, the Problem Statement/Research Questions, Significance of the Study, Research Methodology etc. This studyemployed the Exploratory and Descriptive Qualitative Research Method to analyzedata gathered. The data for this paper comes mostly from secondary sources, i.e.from published newspapers, books, Journal articles, and official government policydocuments etc.Corruption as a universal phenomenon has no universally accepted definition,as such in Chapter Two a conceptual analysis on corruption was given from varioustheories, approaches and manifestations of corruption.Chapter Three discusses the state of corruption in Nigeria which led to theinitiations of Anti-Corruption Policies.In Chapter Four the Anti-Corruption Policies were analyzed including Privateand International initiatives that assisted in the fight against corruption in the country.Chapter Five analyzed the Research Findings from the issues discussed in thevarious chapters thereby giving answers to the research questions and also drewlessons from other countries anti-corruption initiatives and concluded withrecommendations. |
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