TRANSPARENCY International in a new report ranked Nigeria 146th with a score of 26 points in the 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
The 180 participating countries were ranked on the scale of 0 to 100 where 0 score means highly corrupt and a score of 100 indicates an absence of corruption.
The CPI report indicated that the ranking was predicated on the relationship between politics, money and corruption.
According to the report, Nigeria dropped from 144th position with a score of 27 points to 146th in 2019.
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) said: “Nigeria has not fared well in terms of global corruption ranking”.
The current position represents the worst performance relative to the country’s ranking of 139th out of 176 countries in 2012, the report showed.
The 2019 corruption survey carried out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes revealed that 33,000 households across Nigeria who had contacts with at least one public official in 2019, 6,237 households paid bribes.
The survey showed that the bribery cases were in the form of cash payment, food and valuables.
The report also estimated the prevalence of vote-buying, observed to be highly prevalent in three geo-political zones including South-South, North West and North Central.
The NESG suggested how corruption can be reduced in Nigeria, saying operations of the anti-graft agencies should not be interrupted by political interference.
This, it said would enhance the autonomy and strength of those public institutions.
It also suggested that there is a need for continuous supervision and review of the activities of public officials to enhance transparency and accountability in public affairs.
The group further suggested that the fight against corruption strategies should not be a one-off measure.
According to NESG, the Nigerian government should also ensure that opinions of ordinary Nigerians are heard through granting unflinching freedom to the press as reflected in the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011.
Such deliberate effort, it argued, would help subject high-level decisions to wide-ranging consultation.