70% of Nigerians refused to pay bribe in 2023 due to cost of living pressures, others – NBS

Seventy percent of Nigerians who were asked to pay a bribe in 2023, refused to do so on at least one occasion, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says.

The report titled, “Corruption in Nigeria: patterns and trends,” stated that normative concerns (42 per cent) as well as cost of living pressures (23 per cent) play an important role in explaining why Nigerians refuse to pay bribes.

It also stated that a sizeable share of all bribe-refusers (21 percent) indicated that their main reason for refusing a bribe request was because they had other options of getting what they wanted.

“Bribery is becoming less accepted in Nigeria. The share of citizens who think that bribery requests are acceptable in order to speed up administrative procedures decreased from 29 per cent in 2019 to 23 per cent in 2023.

“Fewer citizens report suffering negative consequences after refusing bribe requests in 2023 (38 per cent) compared with 2019 (49 per cent). This suggests that Nigerians feel increasingly empowered to confront corrupt officials without fear of repercussions,” the NBS said.

The data also stated that the “bribery refusal rate was found to be highest in the north-West (at 76 percent), although all zones recorded refusal rates above 60 percent.”

The NBS ranked corruption 4th among the most important problems affecting the country in 2023, after the cost of living, insecurity and unemployment.

Read also: Government officials took $1.3bn in bribes in 2023, says Nigeria’s statistics agency

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, the Bureau said.

According to the report, more than 95 per cent of all bribes paid in 2023 were paid in monetary form (cash or money transfer), stating that more than N700 billion in cash bribes were paid by citizens to public officials in the same year.