Nigeria’s long ongoing battle against corruption has suffered another setback, as the country slipped two places to 142nd out of 182 nations in the 2025 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index.
Despite maintaining its score of 26 out of 100, the drop in ranking underscores the slow progress in tackling public sector corruption, even as President Bola Tinubu continues to pledge decisive action against graft.
The change in rank reflects the inclusion of two additional countries in the latest index rather than an improvement or deterioration in perceived corruption.
The TI index measures the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents a highly corrupt environment and 100 indicates a very clean one.
In its latest report released on Tuesday, TI highlighted that sub-Saharan Africa remains the lowest performing region globally, with an average score of just 32.
According to the report, only four countries in the region scored above 50, with Seychelles leading at 68, followed by Cabo Verde at 62, and both Botswana and Rwanda at 58.
At the lower end, Sudan scored 14, Eritrea 13, while Somalia and South Sudan each scored 9.
In 2022, the country scored 24 and ranked 150th, while in 2021, it held the same score but was placed 154th, its worst performance under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
 The country’s best ranking in the past decade was in 2016, when it was 136th with a score of 28.
Paul Banoba, regional advisor for Africa at TI, emphasized that public sector corruption disproportionately affects the most vulnerable populations.
He called on African governments to transform anti-corruption commitments into tangible actions, urging stronger accountability measures, greater transparency, protection of civic space, and public engagement.

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