“Transparency International is no longer transparent,” says Lauretta Onochie, a personal assistant to the Nigerian President Muhammdu Buhari, just because the organization’s globally renowned Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018 indicates the menace has got worse this year.

Ms Onochie’s reason is that one of the patrons of the organisation, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, is waving a red card to the Buhari administration, hence she has influenced “her organization” to produce a bad report against the government. The Presidency’s reaction to the report was that TI should “focus on facts no fiction” by taking note of the administration’s ”verifiable achievements” in combating corruption.

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has been, for 22 years, the authoritative reference for all countries in the world by which the perception of corruption is assessed. It ranks 180 countries “on a by combining expert assessments with opinion surveys. The 2018 report, like those of previous years, contains details on the methodologies followed for the attainment of the scores, aimed at making the process of the evaluation transparent and open for critique by the public.

In their criticisms, spokespersons for the president Buhari have regarded the 148^th ranking of Nigeria as unfair and misleading for not factoring in loot recoveries and convictions achieved by the EFCC, as well as Buhari’s appointment as Africa’s anti-corruption champion at the last AU General Session. However, as was observed by Dr Joe Abah in a twitter thread, high conviction to prosecution ratios and large recoveries of stolen wealth could, in fact, increase the perception of corruption in a country.

Being an index on perceptions, the argument based on “political will” could be easily countered with the fact that perception increased in 2017 due to the presidency’s perceived reluctance in ridding itself of some officers accused of diversion of public funds, notably Mr Babachir Lawal, the former Secretary to the Federal Government, and the Ikoyigate involving the Ambassador Ayo Oke of the National Intelligence Agency. Then there was the Maina scandal in which very senior members of the administration seemed to have played the role of accomplices, a case which remains unresolved.

Transparency International, an internationally acclaimed body which has built a reputation for integrity and reliability, will not be affected by the Nigerian government’s attempt to discredit its findings. Instead, it is the local research environment which should find itself worrying about the cherry-picking of results based on whether they are favourable or not.

Nigeria’s tertiary institutions and research institutes which depend on the government for their funds will find themselves in terrible situations when they have to be watchful of the kinds of inferences they come up with from their research endeavours, taking care to not embarrass the administration in power. The rest of the world advances by investing in evidence-based policymaking but it appears that concept will continue to meet stumbling blocks in the local environment when researchers have to worry that the evidence they gather will require good embroideries in order to suit the desired outlook of the administration.

Alexander Onukwue