About N721 billion, an equivalent of 0.35 percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was paid as cash bribes to public officials in the country in 2023, a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has revealed.

The report titled ‘Corruption in Nigeria: Patterns and Trends’ and published on Thursday states that corruption ranked fourth among the most important problems that affected Nigerians in 2023, after high cost of living, crime/insecurity and unemployment.

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It adds that the confidence of Nigerians in the government’s ability to tackle corruption has been continually eroded and only one-third of the population now has faith in such efforts.

“It is estimated that a total of roughly NGN 721 billion (US$1.26 billion) was paid in cash bribes to public officials in Nigeria in 2023, corresponding to 0.35 per cent of the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria,” the report reads in part.

“Nigerians’ confidence in the government’s anti-corruption effort has been declining over time and across regions. While in 2019 more than half of all citizens thought that the government was effective in fighting corruption, in 2023, the share declined to less than a third of all citizens.”

It further states that nine out of 10 times, 95 percent of the bribes were paid in monetary form, which could either be cash or a transfer. Public officials also took bribes in non-monetary forms such as food and drinks (16 percent), animals (8 percent), exchange for other services (7 percent) and valuables (4 percent).

The report also states that six out of 10 successful candidates for public service recruitment paid bribes and used nepotism or both to influence their recruitment.

“The 2023 survey findings indicate that the public sector recruitment process requires closer monitoring, as almost half (46 per cent) of people who secured a job in the public sector in the last three years before the survey admitted that they paid a bribe to facilitate their recruitment – about 1.5 times the share found in the 2019 survey (31 percent).”

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The report lists police officers, immigration officers, judges and magistrates, members of parliament, the Federal Road Safety Corps, members of the armed forces, and doctors and nurses, among others, as public officials who requested a bribe from citizens.