The MacArthur Foundation has said that Nigeria lost over $200 billion to corruption and contract procurement irregularities between 1970 and 2008.
The deputy director at the Foundation in Nigeria, Ms Amina Salihu, revealed this in Abuja yesterday at a town hall meeting to commemorate the 2024 International Anti-Corruption Day held under the theme ‘Tackling procurement fraud and its far-reaching consequences: A collective responsibility.’
The event brought together government officials, civil society organisations, private sector representatives, and international development partners.
According to Salihu, the financial drain are executed through various channels, including inflated contracts, dubious asset disposals and outright theft of resources.
“Whenever you look up these things, you get all kinds of different statistics that trouble you. From 1970 to 2008 over $200 billion was lost in Nigeria through procurement, through inflating contracts, through asset disposals that were not very straightforward, through resources that had been hidden under the table,” she declared.
She said corruption in Nigeria’s procurement process has severe consequences, including the diversion of resources meant for essential public services.
To prevent corruption in the country, Salihu advocated for the need for effective regulation and oversight to prevent corruption and ensure that resources were allocated efficiently.
She also acknowledged the importance of collaboration between government, civil society and the private sector to promote transparency and accountability.
In his remarks, the country director of Accountability Lab, Mr Friday Odeh, said the country’s public service was plagued by a significant lack of accountability.
He noted that the lack of accountability had led to rampant abuse of procurement processes and blatant misuse of public resources, resulting in substantial financial and temporal losses for the country.
For his part, the According to the representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Mr Maximilian Menhard, said the International Anti-Corruption Day offers a crucial opportunity to raise awareness about procurement fraud, commit to integrity in public procurement and agree on relevant follow-up actions.
Also in his speech, the chief executive officer of the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), Ms Lucy Abagi, said a recent report by her organisation exposed significant transparency gaps in Nigeria’s public procurement processes.
According to her, over 56 per cent of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for procurement information were not responded to, highlighting the challenges citizens face in accessing such data.
The event was put together by the Accountability Lab Nigeria, in partnership with the PPDC and UNODC, supported John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
