Nigeria’s former anti-corruption chief said he will end graft and improve government transparency if elected president in a vote scheduled for April.

“Solving the problem of corruption will solve other issues, whether it is infrastructure challenges, insecurity or lack of jobs,” Nuhu Ribadu said in an interview on Dec. 30. The 50-year- old ex-chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission declared his candidacy on Dec. 15.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, is set to hold presidential elections on April 9. Incumbent Goodluck Jonathan has said he intends to extend his rule of the continent’s most populous nation, which ranks 134th on a list of the world’s 178 most corrupt nations compiled by Berlin-based anti-graft monitor, Transparency International.

Ribadu lived in the U.S. and the U.K. after he was removed by President Umaru Yar’Adua from his post at the EFCC and dismissed from the Nigeria Police in 2008 after he rejected a new posting and demotion. He returned to Nigeria in June after Jonathan was sworn in as president following the death of Yar’Adua. He is seeking the nomination of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria.

As the first head of the anti-graft agency, Ribadu brought corruption charges against politicians in the ruling People’s Democratic Party, and government officials including serving governors and ministers.

“I stood for the Nigerian people all the time, including addressing the issue of corruption,” he said. “I will lead a clean, open and transparent government.”

Corruption Cost

Nigeria lost about $380 billion to corruption between independence in 1960 and the end of military rule in 1999, according to a report published by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, in October 2007.

Nigeria is the fifth-biggest source of U.S. crude imports. All of the West African country’s oil is located in the Niger River delta, where armed groups are battling the federal government for control of the region’s resources. The area is also plagued by poverty and environmental degradation caused by decades of oil exploration and production and neglect by successive governments, Ribadu said.

“The Niger delta problem is partly failure of leadership and mismanagement,” he said. “The resources that come out from that place must be used to address the problem of the people there.”

Attacks in the delta by armed groups including the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, cut more than 28 percent of the country’s oil output between 2006 and 2009. MEND wants the region to have exclusive control of its resources, while paying tax to the central government.

Rivals

Ribadu, a muslim from the northeastern Adamawa state, will compete against Jonathan and former military ruler General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change if they are nominated as presidential candidates of their respective parities.

Buhari was Yar’Adua’s closest challenger in the 2007 elections that were marred by rigging and fraud, including ballot snatching and violent intimidation of opponents.

Political parties have until Jan. 15 to nominate their candidates for various political offices, according to the election schedule released by the Independent National Electoral Commission on Nov. 23.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elisha Bala-Gbogbo in Abuja at ebalagbogbo@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dulue Mbachu at dmbachu@bloomberg.net