NIGERIA'S political officer holders earn the highest pay in the world, Transparency International said in its report released yesterday.
Curiously, the Nigerian public servants earn the poorest pay globally, the body also revealed.

The body also rated Nigeria as the 38th most corrupt nation in the world.

In its 2009 Nigeria Corruption Perception Index released in Abuja during a media briefing, it placed Nigeria on the 142nd position out of the 180 countries surveyed with a total of 2.5 points out of 10.

Speaking at the briefing, the Secretary General of Transparency ln Nigeria (TIN), an affiliate of the international coalition, Mr. Osita Ogbu, lamented that the nation was sliding in the corruption war.

He observed that last year, the country was rated 39th in 2008 with a total score of 2.7. He acknowledged the passage of some anti-graft legislations by government, but said it has not demonstrated any political will to fight corruption.

The government is only paying lip service to the fight against corruption. There is a reign of impunity in the land, which the Attorney General of the Federation has called 'the rule of law,'" he said.

While urging the National Judicial Council to discipline erring officers, the secretary general accused the judiciary of constituting one of the stumbling blocks to the anti-corruption efforts in the country by granting reckless and questionable injunctions restraining the anti-corruption agencies from either investigating or prosecuting some persons.

Ogbu argued that absence of electoral accountability in Nigeria allows other forms of corruption to thrive, noting that nobody has been punished for their role in the "fundamentally flawed 2007 elections," even as the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission has continued to conduct other flawed bye-elections.

The group accused the Federal Government of taking steps that could be interpreted as undermining the electoral reform process, arguing that its rejection of key recommendations of the Justice Muhammadu Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee indicated this.

TIN decried wage dichotomy between political office holders and public servants, noting that the remuneration of Nigeria's political office holders was the highest globally while that of their counterparts in public service was the least.

Speaking further, he argued that Nigeria required more serious effort and commitment to the fight against corruption as the recent crisis in the banking sector has shown the ineffectiveness of the regulatory framework.

Thats pretty sad, I did a post on the corruption index earlier (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-353434.0.html) and Nigeria is at position 130 not 142 (nothing to celebrate there) are they not embarassed?

transform its really heartbreaking sha