Mexico and Nigeria unite against corruption

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(CNN Spanish) - A Nigerian delegation made up of anti-corruption experts from the Independent Commission on Corrupt Practices and Other Related Crimes (ICPC) arrived in Mexico to exchange experiences in the fight against corruption.

The secretary of the Public Function of Mexico, Irma Eréndira Sandoval, received this Monday the commission also made up of civil organizations. Both countries will share "experiences and good practices," the official said in a statement.

Sandoval celebrated "the beginning of this first anti-corruption cooperation effort" with Nigeria and said that by having "similar challenges" with this country, both countries can find common solutions.

The union of forces between Mexico and Nigeria will be to exchange knowledge and experiences to fight corruption.

Nigeria's ambassador to Mexico, Aminu Iyawa, said that the objective of this joint work is to “exchange knowledge and acquire new strategies in a world where the culprits are becoming very sophisticated in their corrupt practices, in complicity with institutions such as banks and companies investment".

"Mexico and Nigeria are two nearby nations that, despite their geographical distance, fight decisively and coincidentally against corruption and its effects," says an SFP statement.

Janet Oropeza, researcher of the Accountability and Corruption Fight Program at the Fundar Analysis and Research Center, says she looks forward to the visit of the Nigerian delegation for the contributions it can make in the Mexican case.

"From our perspective, we believe that the exchange can be fruitful and even interesting with countries with which common themes are shared," Oropeza told CNN in Spanish. “It is not bad that Mexico exchanges experiences with countries that share similar problems. The contexts are different, the institutions are different, but there are also cases of corruption ... So maybe you can learn from the experiences in other countries. ”

• Look: The 'Corruptionary', the book that seeks to raise awareness in Mexico

What does the ICPC do?

The Nigerian Commission against corruption was founded almost 20 years ago, with the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the first civilian to govern the country after years after decades of a military government. By 1999, Nigeria was the second most corrupt country in the world on the International Transparency Corruption Index, says the ICPC website, adding that by then "corruption in Nigeria had become a real cancer."

Its mission is to “receive complaints, investigate and prosecute” the corrupt, as well as other tasks of “review and modification of the systems and procedures of public bodies, as well as the education of the public and the promotion of their support in the fight against the corruption".

The Mexican government recognized the trajectory of the ICPC and its “important experience in combating corruption” in Nigeria for more than two decades.

"Our country follows Nigeria's progress in its fight against corruption, particularly the effective work of its Independent Commission on Corrupt Practices and Other Related Crimes, as well as the Commission on Economic and Financial Crimes," said Sandoval.

The representatives of Mexico and Nigeria will share experiences in the fight against corruption. (Credit: Ministry of Public Administration of Mexico).

Mexico and Nigeria, with similar corruption rates

As the head of the Public Service secretariat indicated, Mexico and Nigeria have very similar corruption challenges.

The Latin American country is ranked 138 in the Transparency International index on corruption in a list of 180 countries, while Nigeria is ranked 144 in the 2018 report published earlier this year.

On Mexico, Transparencia stressed that from 2012 to 2018 the country has fallen six places in the corruption ranking and several corruption scandals (along with Chile) that involve political leaders have erupted.

“In Mexico, basic political rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of the press, have declined dramatically. Without a means of free communication to monitor the government, the ability to prevent and report corruption is limited, ”says the 2018 report published in January of this year.

However, the Transparency report highlights that in recent years the country has seen “increasing social support for anti-corruption reforms,” as happened in 2015 when a new anti-corruption system was created.

A recent report by the Global Corruption Barometer revealed that 61% of respondents in Mexico indicated that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is acting “well” or “very well” in contrast, with 24% of respondents in 2017 , who considered that the government of Enrique Peña Nieto acted "well" or "very well" against corruption.

On this barometer, Oropeza points out that this change is due to the fact that in this government they have begun to make more visible the cases of corruption that were not previously spoken openly.

“Obviously every change of government implies a difference in the strategies that are going to be implemented and in part since the new government (of López Obrador) they have gone in different ways, for example the part of financial intelligence, to start dealing with corruption cases , of tracking money, and irregular resources, enrichments that cannot be explained by the political class, ”he says.

“There are some public procurement scandals that have begun to be reviewed, which had been documented for many years, but which had never been talked about as being counterproductive to the interests of the State,” he adds.

Meanwhile, in the most recent report, Nigeria scored 27 points out of 100 possible and has been in the same ranking position since 2017. Looking ahead to the 2015 and 2019 elections, corruption was “one of the most important issues,” according to the Transparency International report.

“The administration of [Muhammadu] Buhari of Nigeria has taken a number of positive steps in the last three years, including the establishment of a presidential advisory committee against corruption, the improvement of the legal and political anti-corruption framework in areas such as public procurement and declaration of assets, and the development of a national anti-corruption strategy, among others, ”says Transparency. “However, these efforts have clearly not given the desired results. At least not yet. ”

Corruption