The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has restated the imperative for the Nigerian government to be focused on exposing secrecy characterized the nation’s extractive industries for the past decades.
The organization, in its contributions during the review of the Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perception Index by key anti-corruption groups and agencies recently, noted that the 2024 CPI report merely reflected a slight improvement in Nigeria’s global ranking, reflecting some improvement in the government and other stakeholders’ collective efforts to combat corruption in the country.
While pointing out this progress is encouraging, the Executive Secretary of the NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, told participants at the forum that the latest ranking was also a reminder that much work remained to be done by the government in its sustained drive to tackle opacity in the extractive industries.
According to him, the marginal improvement reflects ongoing reforms in public financial management, increased enforcement actions by anti-corruption agencies, and Nigeria’s commitment to strengthening institutional frameworks for transparency.
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According to him, despite this progress, Nigeria must intensify her efforts in Strengthening Enforcement and Sanctions, Expanding Beneficial Ownership Transparency as well as more visible and decisive actions against corruption cases, with an emphasis on asset recovery, deterrence, and judicial efficiency.
Orji maintained that full implementation of the Beneficial Ownership Register to combat illicit financial flows, money laundering, and secrecy in the extractive sector would assist the government in tackling the corruption in the industries, even as he advocated the need to focus on Enhancing Fiscal and Revenue Transparency with Sustained reforms in budget implementation, procurement processes, and the disclosure of government revenues and expenditures.
In addition, the NEITI chief also recommended the need for Deepening Multi-Stakeholder Engagement, with increased collaboration among anti-corruption institutions, civil society, media, and international partners to reinforce accountability mechanisms.
On this, he commended the current efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in making use of available information and data to drive its anti-corruption efforts in the extractive industries, urging the leadership of the commission not to relent in its efforts.
The NEITI boss further clarified: “We equally welcome our collaboration with other sister agencies like the ICPC, the NFIU, the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Civil Society.
“NEITI as Chair of the Inter Agency Task Team will continue to work closely with 21 anti-corruption agencies to ensure that Nigeria records builds on the marginal progress we have recorded in the last TI ranking.” he added.
Orji restated the agency’s commitment to deepening Nigeria’s fight against corruption and will continue to implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standards by strengthening reporting mechanisms to expose revenue leakages, underpayments, and opaque transactions in the oil, gas, and solid minerals sectors.
In the area of Annual Industry Reports, the industry expert promised that NEITI would always provide credible data on revenues, subsidies, crude theft, and resource governance to guide policy decisions and enforcement actions.
Orji also restated the agency’s commitment to Advocacy for Policy and Legal Reforms, through engaging with policymakers to ensure that Nigeria’s legal and institutional frameworks align with global best practices in extractive sector governance.
He assured: “NEITI remains committed to supporting this cause and working with all stakeholders to ensure that Nigeria achieves not just incremental progress but a transformative leap in future corruption perception rankings.”
