Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, has said that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is on track in its fight against corruption, despite the high corruption rating by the Transparency International.

According to Mohammed, the country would have had a better rating if its “data and retrieval system” had been updated.

In the latest of its annual report, Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Nigeria occupies 149th out of 180 countries surveyed after scoring 25 out of 100 points, making it the most corrupt country in West Africa after Guinea-Bissau.

But while speaking on a TVC programme, ‘This Morning’, earlier today, Mohammed said the report has not reflected the various measures put in place by government in its fight against corruption.

“When in 2019 we had an unflattering rating by the Transparency International, we studied what was responsible for the low rating and realized that up to 40% of the indices responsible for the low rating were from the ease of doing business. The Federal Government, through its Committee on the Ease of Doing Business, then focused its attention on removing bottlenecks from the ease of doing business, particularly in the areas of port reform.

“Now, it might take few months, a year or two, for what the government is doing in these areas to show. 40% of the problem is in the area of ease of doing business. We are making headway.”

On how the successes of the government in the fight against corruption may have been underreported, he said: “We realized also that part of the problem we have is that we need to update our data and retrieval system so that we will not be underreported in the areas where we are making progress.”

From 136^th position out of the 176 countries surveyed in 2014 to 146th out of 180 countries in 2019, Nigeria has systemically slid down Transparency International’s corruption ladder under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, whose most prominent campaign mantra was “war against corruption”.