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President Goodluck Jonathan lied to the world in his Independence Day anniversary speech about gains his administration has made in the fight against corruption, a PREMIUM TIMES investigation has revealed.
In what appears to be a major credibility stunt, President Jonathan read a speech in which he scored his government high on all sides.
In order to make his good performance appear holistic, the president included in his speech that global corruption watchdog, Transparency International, has endorsed and praised his administration’s war against corruption.
Mr. Jonathan said, “…the fight against the scourge of corruption is a top priority of our administration.
“We are fighting corruption in all facets of our economy, and we are succeeding. We have put an end to several decades of endemic corruption associated with fertilizer and tractor procurement and distribution.  We have exposed decades of scam in the management of pensions and fuel subsidy, and ensured that the culprits are being brought to book,” he added.
To give his claims international credibility, the presidents then said: “In its latest report, Transparency International (TI) noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in the effort to curb corruption.”
The lie
PREMIUM TIMES contacted Transparency International seeking a copy of its latest report which the President referred to in his speech.
The group replied promptly disowning Mr. Jonathan and saying it had no such report.
“Transparency International does not have a recent rating or report that places Nigeria as the second most improved country in the fight against corruption,” the group said in an email to this newspaper.
The group said its most recent indexing of Nigeria’s corruption activities was in the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measuresd perceived level of public sector corruption in the country.
In that index, Nigeria scored 2.4 on a scale where 0 means highly corrupt and 10 means very clean. It was ranked 143 out of 183 countries.
That rating was actually a dip in performance for Nigeria as the country was rated 134 out of 183 countries the previous year, 2010.
The president’s spokesperson would not comment for this story. The Special Adviser on Media, Reuben Abati as well as the Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, did not answer or return calls.
They also did not reply text messages sent to their telephones.

Source: Premium Times