The war against corruption in Nigeria : an Islamic perspective

In recent years, corruption has attracted a great deal of attention all over the world and gladly the global attention to the phenomenon is now enormous. In developed and developing countries, large or small, Muslim and non-Muslim majority, governments have fallen because of accusations of corruption. Corruption around the world is believed to be endemic, pervasive and a significant contributor to slow economic growth; it stifles investment and inhibits the provision of public services. It has increased inequality to such an extent that international organizations like the World Bank have identified corruption as "the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development”

This thesis is to look at the war on corruption in Nigeria and to identify the shortcomings in the approaches towards the fight against its menace. So far, approaches on fighting corruption have mainly focused on building anticorruption institutions and designing anticorruption strategies which can be referred to as "external constraints" to individuals, without looking at possible objects of internal restraints (Islamic perspective) which revolves around building individuals in the society with high moral and ethical ideals. Although Nigeria operates a secular constitution, but religion plays a central role in people's daily lives. And where religion plays important role in people's lives, it is expected that people will derive their moral and ethical values from their religion. So, considering the significant Muslim population in Nigeria, the thesis will look at how Nigeria can benefit in solving the problem of corruption, if her current and existing strategies on the war against corruption can be well complemented with the Islamic perspective/views on tackling corruption.

The main text of the thesis is comprised of an introductory chapter that defines corruption and navigates through both Western and Islamic viewpoints on corruption, the socio-economic effects of corruption and how well its menace can be seriously and effectively combatted. The second chapter will look at the political history of Nigeria and how several Nigerian administrations have struggled to contain the menace of corruption which has been in most part not so impressive. The third chapter will examine and analyze the major established anticorruption agencies and laws in Nigeria (Code of Conduct Bureau, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offence Commission, and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and their impacts on the war on corruption and democratic process. The chapter will also examine the challenges facing these institutions and reasons for their underperformance. The last chapter of the thesis will suggest possible recommendations and conclusion.