This abridged version of Osita Ninamani Ogbu’s paper explains how vital it is that civil society is engaged in the fight against corruption in Nigeria, and looks at the challenges of bringing this about.

Since the advent of the ‘democratic’ rule in 1999, there have been uncountable incidents of politically motivated assassinations, thuggery and banditry. The menace of armed robbery and other violent crimes has become phenomenal. Lives and property have become very insecure in the Nigerian state. The various tiers of government in Nigeria have manifested their inability to secure lives and property. In many instances, there have been serious allegations of government involvement in some cases of judicial killing. The various tiers of governments have always come out to deny complicity in any extra-judicial killing in their area of jurisdiction. As a result of the inability of state security apparatuses to preserve lives and property, the people have taken the initiative of providing vigilante groups. These vigilante groups employ the system of torture to extract confessional statements from suspects. They go further and kill robbery suspects without judicial trial. The police are also frequently subject suspects to torture for the purpose of extracting confessional statements from them, or to satisfy whoever employs them to make the arrest.

This article delves into a little of Nigeria’s history since independence and focuses on the decline of the country’s legal system, the tendency towards impunity and the increasing obstacles to reversing this trend.

In his keynote address to the World Justice Forum (WJF) in Barcelona in June, intrepid Premier Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe commended the WJF’s multi-disciplinary approach to the rule of law and the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index. The latter, he said, “has spurred some governments across the world to work harder to ensure that they do not occupy the bottom tier in the matrix of good governance and observance of the rule of law.” However, the World Justice Project (WJP) does admit that there already is a ‘crowded …

MAIN CAUSES OF JUDICIAL CORRUPTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
According to Adam Smith in his Lectures on Jurisprudence, the factor that “greatly retarded commerce was the imperfection of the law and the uncertainty in its application”. Entrenched corrupt practices within the public sector hamper the clear definition and enforcement of laws, such that commerce is impeded.
Macropolicy Actions
International experience shows that specific macropolicy actions are associated with the reduction in the perceived corruption in countries ranging from Uganda to Singapore, from Hong Kong to Chile. These actions include lowering tariffs and other trade barriers; unifying market …