IN a country where trillions of naira move through government coffers with little public scrutiny, the battle for transparency is often fought against powerful interests. For UMAR Yakubu, founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity (CeFTPI), confronting corruption is not about chasing headlines or individuals, but dismantling the systems that enable waste, fraud and impunity in Nigeria’s public sector.

In this ICIR accountability series interview, Yakubu explains CeFTPI’s evolution, its data-driven tools, and why fixing Nigeria’s electoral and accountability systems may be central to breaking the cycle of corruption. Below are excerpts from the conversation.

The ICIR: What inspired the creation of  CeFTPI and how has the organisation evolved?

Yakubu: We registered in 2016, but we effectively took off 2020 just after COVID and that’ was when we actually started operations. Between 2016 and 2020, we were doing a low-level advocacy around things that breed fraud, corruption, organised crime, human trafficking.

We were going to schools to talk to children to avoid human trafficking, prostitution, fraud, crimes, and all those kinds of things. We did a lot of advocacies online and write-ups because I write too for a lot of media houses. But from post-COVID, we went full-fledged and our focus revolved around several areas.

We try to advocate in areas of the problems in whatever ill we see in society, if it’s corruption, we look at the primary enablers. That is where we target advocacy. If it’s organised crime, depending on which one, human trafficking, we look at the primary enabler. If it’s drug trafficking or whatever element or part of public sector corruption, we look at those enablers because we have been going around in circles for too long.

If we do not look at the factors that cause those problems, we will not resolve them. For example, if we look at public sector corruption, instead of the normal people to advocate against through EFCC, ICPC, we look at the primary source of all this public sector corruption, which is usually the political class.

Now, how do the political class get to where they are? They have a regulator called INEC, (Independent National Electoral Commission). Our work will now focus more on INEC. For example, if you get your electoral system right, you will not have these pressure on the system. That is usually our approach. We look at fiscal transparency issues because once there’s transparency, the level of accountability will increase.

We look at public sector reforms because a lot of problems we have in Nigeria, aside corruption, is a lot of waste. It’s mostly about waste and low level of efficiency.

Thirdly, we look at the integrity of systems, not of individuals. What are the integrity mechanisms within those organisations that allow them or doesn’t allow them to prosper and provide what they’re supposed to do for Nigerians? . Then we’ll look at organised crime resilience.

We actually do that because when your public sector is not efficient, and weak, it breeds a lot of the criminality we see in the country today.

Lastly, we believe in data. Whatever we do, we are backed by data. We have several databases that were built mainly from open sources, depending on the segment you want to do.

The ICIR: In September, you introduced the Transparency and Corruption Risk Assessment (TACRA). How do these tools work?

Yakubu: Actually, in September, we had two tools. One was the Transparency and Integrity Index, and the second one was Transparency and Corruption Risk Assessment, which is the TACRA.

On the TACRA, we take each individual MDA. There are over 600 of them at the federal level, and the 36 state governments, as well as the seven hundred and seventy-four local governments. We started doing for the TACRA twice a month, sometimes three times. We picked one agency and critically analysed it in terms of its integrity, its mechanism, transparency, in terms of accountability, several indicators. Also,  in terms of open-source information on how many investigations have been carried on,  in terms of its whole mandate by law. There’s a law guiding every federal agency in Nigeria.

In terms of mandate, we look at  how well has it done on all those integrity and accountability mechanisms? That’s the TACRA. We have started with the Customs Service. We have also done JAMB. We have done NNPC, which is taking a lot of time because they have a whole backlog of accountability issues.

We are taking every agency, then we’ll start going to the state governments, maybe pick one state, and start spreading around because this is a lot of work.

For the Transparency and Integrity Index, it’s something we started in 2021 as well. Actually, it’s a global tool for the measurement of corruption.

Nigeria did not have that. So, what we decided to do was to develop a tool that we can see whether we’re improving or regressing. The Transparency and Integrity Index is just based on five pillars: fiscal transparency, public procurement, human resources, citizen engagement, and control of corruption.

Under these five thematic areas, you have other variables which are about 29, which we measure. As we measure every MDA for the last five years, we score them all in September of every year, which is a United Nations International Day for Universal Access to Information. We release that report every year and give them their scores.

The ICIR: How have MDAs responded so far?

Yakubu: Under the federal, MDAs are in about 11 categories. You have the core ministries, the commissions, the government-owned enterprises, the research institutions, the educational institutions, you have the water business. Now depending on the category you look at, those that are the core agencies, commissions, all those ones that you see, universities commission, communications commission, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), those that  have some degree of improvement. The core ministries are about 23, including agriculture, finance, industries, all of them that are static.

There’s really no improvement in terms of transparency. The same with the educational institutions too, they are not really improving. For the states, initially when we started, they were doing well, but there was a reason why they were doing well. That time we were borrowing money post-COVID.

One of the criteria for the World Bank to give loans to states was the proactive disclosure of certain kinds of information. That have been called the SIFTAS, the (State Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Initiative) or something like that or support.

As soon as the World Bank pulled out, the states went back to status quo. Their level of transparency has now gone back to where they were before the SIFTAS came in.

The ICIR: What are the major challenges of fiscal transparency and public integrity in Nigeria, particularly in the light of the country’s recent economic struggles?

Yakubu: I think it’s from the demand side. Citizens are not demanding enough. The only people doing this work are usually civil society like us, you and I, and a couple of media. There needs to be more demand for transparency and accountability because what evidence has shown is that citizens are not demanding and they leave it only to the media, though the media is very important and critical and an avenue where citizens can voice their concerns.

Right now we have the new media in terms of social media, people can go there and voice their concerns too. But there needs to be more intensive demand for transparency and accountability where it will improve this level of transparency. An example is, let’s say the NNPC. Now you can see once in a while they release their audit reports.

Recently, I read where the Auditor General queried the spending of about 15 million pounds on one of their assets in the United Kingdom. So, you see, this needs to go across board, across all MDEs, especially those government-owned enterprises that happen to have a lot of money with them, and that is where most of the corruption goes through in Nigeria.

The ICIR: Where did Nigeria get it wrong despite repeated revelations?

Yakubu: If you look at the role of the Auditor General of the Federation, it is very strong and the law empowering that organisation is very strong. But the political system has found a way of weakening that office. If you check the constitution, if I’m correct, they are one of the three agencies, INEC, Code of Conduct Bureau and Auditor General, that are actually created by the constitution, so they are that powerful.

But to even enable their agency is that their report is supposed to go to the National Assembly. But when they don’t have the support of the National Assembly, probably because they are in bed with the executive when it comes in terms of all this public sector corruption, they have strategically weakened their agency to perform its duty. So, what we need to do is to continue our advocacy to strengthen the office of the Auditor General of the Federation because they have powers to do all these things.

Even if they don’t give them powers to sanction, their reports can easily serve as a platform where the law enforcement agencies cannot do their jobs, even when the National Assembly don’t want to do their job. This is my own view regarding strengthening the office of the Auditor General of the Federation.

The ICIR: What is your assessment of accountability at the state and local government levels?

I don’t want to say zero because I can’t statistically prove the number. But it is a very critical risk in the sense that the institutions for accountability at state level are just non-existent. One, there is no state assembly that has shown demand for accountability from any state governor in the last 10-15 years that I’m aware of. There is no state assembly that has impeached, not even questioned any governor demanding accountability about public funds.

There is no state where you see a lot of strength of civil society at the sub-national level and there are accusations. Some say they have been bought over. Those that have not been bought are not allowed to do their duty. So, the accountability mechanisms at the state level are very low.

For the local government, we actually have another report we released when the Supreme Court said the local government should be receiving their funds.

We analysed the local government, 774 of them, using eight pillars around accountability mechanism and the analysis shows that only three are categorised as low tier, meaning they have semblance of accountability. So there is low risk, there is medium risk, there is high risk, there is critical risk, there is extreme risk. Now, you have over 300 local governments in the extreme risk category.

So, you see only three; Nasarawa local government in Nasarawa state. I think Ikeja in Lagos state and Kaduna north. I think  one of the local governments also in Jigawa. So just about three or four even publishes their records. Publishing doesn’t even mean nothing has gone behind, but at least one step has been taken to publish. I will have to give them credit for even publishing.

The ICIR: How can states be better monitored, especially around budgets?

Yakubu: I don’t subscribe to the tracking of funds in the sense. If you go to the Federal Reserve Finance website, you see actually how much goes to every state. I know, for example, N10 billion has gone to A state, for example. Now, what needs to be tracked is not the remittance, it’s utilisation.

How they’re utilising those funds. If you look at the research now, you see most public sector corruption is through procurement fraud. So, what to do for each state is simple; just focus on their procurement data.

Three cardinal principles. Who are the contractors for whatever project? You go and look at what the companies get;  the directors, who are the beneficial owners of those companies, that is one. Two, the details of the contract, because that’s why you see every year they are buying cars, because they have no idea on how to actually serve the people.

I have not seen at our centre, that publishes a procurement implementation report. Because you are not publishing or providing any manner a procurement implementation report, you find that every year you keep seeing the same items being repeated. And nobody’s really asking questions.

Okay, the cars we bought last year, what happened to them? Have they expired? Or do cars have an expiry date?. That is why you see that states are always rushing to build roads, and we don’t look at the quality of those roads.

Every one or two years, they are doing the same road because of the margin of returns in whether a bribe or a kickback, whatever name you want to call it.

The same for the local governments, when they start getting their funds, because there’s no evidence that has been shown whether they’re actually receiving those funds directly now. But if you just focus on the procurement data alone, under these three pillars, it will be good enough for us to monitor the states.

The ICIR: What role can technology play in fiscal transparency?

Yakubu: One of the things we use a lot is technology. We have actually used artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. I’m saying this for the first time in the public domain. We have managed to gather all procurement data of all MDAs for the last five years. And, we have built the risk parameters. Now, in 10 seconds, the technology has given us the risk analysis of every procurement that was done in this country in the last five, six years.

It is only technology that can do that for you even if you have 10 billion dollars. You know how AI works. When you set the parameters, what it should give you, it gives you back those data. So, we assess the risk level on each level of procurement.

The ICIR: What are your priorities in the next two to three years, and how do you plan to address emerging challenges?

Yakubu: A lot of money is going through so many places. So, our priority is to see how to enhance the utilisation of technology because we are using a lot of technology to get this data and share it because we have active relationships with a lot of MDAs where we share the data. We are not too confrontational because we want them to do better.

That seems to have worked better instead of standing aside and just hitting them from the outside, we tell them, this is the data. Please, we think they should do better. I think we need to do more of that. We also need to do more at sub-national level. Everybody is in Abuja focusing on federal government.

Anywhere I go, I advocate on INEC, because INEC is the sole agency responsible for the problems we have in the political class. They are the sole agency. They have a very strong regulation, very strong law and regulation to monitor political party finance, and they are not doing it. Now, when you don’t do that, you unleash all these guys on us. That’s why they’re scrambling for money everywhere to go and maintain their political structures, to win elections, and all of these problems we have.

So, we appeal to the ICIR to join us in doing a lot of advocacy, they have a new chairman at  INEC, let him regulate the political parties. The elements of political party financing, they have not done anything on that.

ICIR: Like campaign funding?

Yakubu: Yes, that’s the political party financing. INEC itself does not even release its own audit report. So, how can you regulate people when you yourself have violated the law? Once INEC is good, a lot of this pressure will reduce on the system.