NNNG Lagos state coordinator Ayo Sandius said at the Commonwealth Peoples Forum on Wednesday that there was no point in the leadership disputing Transparency International (TI) 2003 Corruption Perception Index that listed Nigeria as the second worst corrupt country in the world, when the evidence abounded.

“We cannot hide behind democracy, the fact of the matter is that Nigeria is still a corrupt society and we have to face up to it.”

According to Sandius, one of the major issues the country had to tackle was its legislation. ‘’The Constitution needed to be reviewed, with existing laws being strengthened. The freedom of information Act needed to be instituted. The provisions of the anti corruption laws needed to be religiously implemented and NNNG would be setting up a website on the anti corruption campaign’’.

Corruption, she said, had eaten deep into the judicial system and therefore expressed an urgent need to make the judiciary independent of the executive with adequate funds provided to it through the consolidated revenue fund to achieve this independent.

“Like the judiciary, the police force has come to symbolize corruption. We need to look at how we can democratize control and also bring in professionalism in the force,” Sandius said.

When Obasanjo took office in 1999, he made it clear that fighting corruption would be the principle objective of his government, but four years later, when his term is almost over, all he has done is set an anti corruption agency and an anti-corruption unit in each government department.

“But even these units have not been able to prosecute or convict a single person since their establishment and yet we know that there is still so much corruption in the country. Obviously the government has failed to deal with the problem. It needs help.”

Sandius says government has traditionally been reluctant to move against the ‘big fish’ in corruption because it has either compromised itself or lacked the courage.

“ What we want to tell the president is that in the fight against corruption he has our backing and we will support him as president and as an individual”.

Sandius says while corruption is ‘severest’ at political level, there are practices that have evolved in the name of ‘culture’ which give rise to corruption.

She cited payment of high bride price, expensive burial and wedding ceremonies and awards of chieftaincy titles and national honours.

“People might think that these are petty issues, but they impact on our society and are causes of endemic corruption. Nigerians are a people who value stature and prominence in society.”

She explained that people were forced into corrupt practices to raise money for these expensive rituals to raise their profiles in society. A ‘good wedding’ could cost anything in excess of N1 million (US$10,000). Payment to a king or chief for a title could cost about N250,000 (about US$7,500) . In a country where 80 percent of the people live on less than a dollar a day, Sandius said the “pressure to engage in bribe taking is high.”

While NNNG cannot tell people how to spend their money, civil society can start a movement to jettison the ‘obscene display of wealth’ and declare ‘war on ostentatious living’.