If Episode 1 diagnosed Nigeria’s corruption mix, this one prescribes the cure. Yuen Yuen Ang’s framework points to a pragmatic route: make grand and petty theft high-risk and low-return, squeeze out speed money by redesigning services, and discipline access money through open competition.
Countries rarely leap from dirty to clean overnight, but they can migrate from lethal corruption to manageable rents that finance productivity. Nigeria under the watch of President Bola Tinubu can turn off the theft pipes to start with. Here are some proffered solutions.
1. Close the Big Pipes
Oil and gas: Real-time metering and publication of production data would shrink the $3.3 billion annual theft gap. Nigeria’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) already audits losses; what’s missing is *live disclosure.* The present government has all it takes (people, resources, knowledge, technology) to tag every barrel of oil from wellhead to export and she has no reason not to publish it. This is the go-to here.
Beneficial ownership: The Corporate Affairs Commission’s 2023 register exposes who truly owns companies under the CAMA 2020 reform. Make the data open API, in other words create publicly accessible interface that allows anyone to programmatically access the functionality and then cross-match it with government contracts, and publish the red-flag list of politically exposed owners.
With the deployment of AI to which this government is fully exposed, this can be done in minutes not weeks or months..
Fuel subsidies: Big thanks to the government on the steps so far taken. But more can still be done. Without much Ado, end discretion by fixing an automatic pricing formula indexed to FX and landing costs. If social cushioning is needed, route it through time-bound digital cash transfers monitored by independent civil groups.
Procurement: Nigeria’s Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) should be law, not pilot.
By 2026 every federal contract above ₦50 million ought to appear online with tender documents, evaluation sheets, and contract sums. The Bureau of Public Procurement claimed ₦173 billion savings in the first half of the fiscal year (H1) 2025; audit it, then replicate the model at state level. Yes. replicate at State level by all ways and all means.
When civil servants are sure they will go to jail (long time), and forfeit whatever they have acquired whenever they’re exposed, they will stop supporting politicians and stop aiding contractors.
2. Starve “Speed Money” Opportunities
Digitize services and remove cash handling totally. Police reports, land titles, and company filings and all forms of levies and local tax should be e-processed with fixed timelines and user dashboards. Publish monthly service-delivery metrics so citizens see which offices cause delays. We have technology innovations that are deployable even today. Systemize documents check like Lagos State already do by camera surveillance. VIOs, Road Safety Corps, Police do not have business checking vehicle particulars when same can be done on vehicles and drivers who are not even on the road.
Let road Unions device ways to collect dues and quit the roads all over the country within six months; that to me is not proscription, it is making Nigeria smarter.
Also, promotion points for civil servants must depend on merit, integrity and efficiency, not patronage. Like in China, Nigeria should invest heavily on advertising the consequences of these criminalities and name and shame offenders publicly.
3. Make “Access” Competitive
When rights, spectrum, land, mining, PPP contracts are auctioned transparently, access money turns from secret bargain to public contest. The rule is simple: everyone can bid, but no one can hide. That alone can shift elite ambition from extraction to performance, much as China’s local officials once competed on growth scores. For example, in China, every local government has a quota to contribute to the overall GDP of the nation. To that end, drive competition among states and local governments and reward winners and make huge noise of it consistently. People will soon begin to elect performers to responsible positions.
4. Create a Recovered Assets Authority
Billions recovered from foreign jurisdictions disappear again in bureaucracy. A dedicated authority should publish inflows and project-level uses quarterly, with civil-society oversight.
The July 2023 court order mandating full Abacha-loot disclosure shows the legal base already exists. Replicate same at State Government and Local Government levels and underscore transparency by publishing relevant materials online and by announcements on local radio stations.
5. Measure Success
The Ministry of information at all levels should announce, publish and air set-goals and progress made on them consistently. For example:
Corruption perception Index (CPI) score up from 26 to 35+ by 2027.
Oil-theft losses halved from $3.3 billion baseline.
Petty-bribery exposure down 10 points from UNODC 2023 levels.
95 percent of federal contracts published in OCDS format.
Such metrics matter because corruption fights fail when they rely on moral suasion alone. Citizens must see progress in numbers.The APC and actors in the present government among other things won the 2019 elections by exposing hidden corruption; they owe it to the public not only by saying they are honest but must be seen to be honest. Therefore, metrics matters.
All over the world, the fact is consistent that no leader can wish corruption away; they must change the math. They must raise detection probability. They must lower discretionary power and they must reward transparent performance. The same instincts that make elites chase rents can be redirected to chase public targets once the scoreboard is public. When access money becomes rule-bound, Nigeria can finally convert political energy into economic output.
Corruption is not destiny. It is a system sustained by incentives . However, the systems can be redesigned to glaringly feature punishment. What China did effectively, was to discipline its greed. Nigeria’s war mission against corruption as it stands today is often said to be hard to defeat especially in transforming unproductive theft into productive competition. But once the rules of access are clear, even our hustling genius will serve growth, not graft.
Meanwhile, when China encountered stiff opposition in high places, they brought in stiff punishment as deterrent. In fact, about 40 years ago, China began a structured assault on corruption when they found that its market reforms expanded opportunities for graft. Therefore through the 1980s and 1990s, Beijing set up layers of ‘Discipline Inspection Commissions’ and ‘Special Tribunals’ to police public officials.
The effort reached its most intense phase in 2012 under Xi Jinping, when the “Tigers and Flies” campaign targeted both senior and low-level officials. Since then, millions have been investigated, thousands imprisoned, and many stripped of party membership. The campaign evolved into a permanent national supervision system, merging party and state oversight.
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China’s Criminal Law still prescribes the death penalty for corruption and bribery in “especially serious” cases. Over the years, several high-profile officials have been executed:
Cheng Kejie (Vice-Chairman, National People’s Congress) in 2000,
Zheng Xiaoyu (Drug Agency Chief) in 2007, and others given death with reprieve sentences, later commuted to life imprisonment.
As recently as 2024, a senior Inner Mongolia official was executed for embezzling about 3 billion yuan ($412 million).
The above solutions are executable and l have no doubt about the abilities and capabilities of the present core members of the government to make the right decisions. Whether the coming 2027 elections will cloud their judgment becomes a moot point.
Where exactly are aspirants getting N100 billion to fight election? Whatever it takes, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must cast a compelling vision for Nigeria and he must see what Xi Jinping saw when he began to govern China: that corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, manifesting as bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion and nepotism. And, no matter the wisdom and hard-work of any government, corruption will always stifle growth when not frontally confronted.
Thanks to massive deployment of technology in China, 30 years later, the difference is clear. Nigeria can use technology as its platform for a quantum leap as well and look like China in 10 years from now. We can actually win without fighting!
But bear in mind always: “Corruption is not just the theft of money, it becomes the slow bleeding of a nation’s purpose once greed becomes smarter than governance.” — Yuen Yuen Ang (paraphrased insight)
