Aerial view of Lagos island and Lagos harbour, Nigeria, on 17 March 2016. Photo: Getty Images.
1. Introduction
Although corruption impacts countries differently through its various manifestations, it ultimately erodes trust in institutions and plays a negative role in development.5
Many of Nigeria’s pressing concerns – including slow economic recovery, grinding poverty and insecurity – have been exacerbated and prolonged by corruption.
It has been estimated that close to $400 billion was misappropriated from Nigeria’s public accounts from 1960 to 1999.6 Illicit financial flows (IFFs) from the country between 2005 and 2014 are estimated to have totalled some $182 billion.7 This stolen common wealth represents the investment gap in building and equipping modern hospitals to reduce Nigeria’s exceptionally high maternal mortality rates – estimated at two out of 10 global maternal deaths in 2015;8 expanding and upgrading the education system, which is failing millions of children under 15 years of age9 – over 40 per cent of the country’s population; and procuring vaccinations to prevent regular outbreaks of preventable diseases.10
Issues of corruption have frequently dominated scrutiny of Nigerian politics since the country’s return to civilian government in 1999, and successive administrations have engaged in efforts to curb the problem. Notwithstanding such efforts, Nigeria has ranked consistently poorly on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – ranking 136 of 176 countries assessed in 2016 – a sign of the phenomenon’s pervasiveness and the scale of the challenge of curbing it.
The traditional legal and governance-based measures for combating corruption that have so far been adopted have emphasized the need to reform public procurement rules and public financial management systems. They have also resulted in the promulgation of a substantive body of anti-corruption legislation,11 and in the establishment of various agencies tasked with preventing corruption and punishing those who engage in it.
This approach to tackling corruption is targeted at making its practice more perilous or costly to an individual or organization through punishments and penalties. But, while legal repercussions are essential, and the importance of public-sector reform to increase transparency in Nigeria cannot be overstated, the risks and consequences of a practice that is considered corrupt are not always apparent or urgent to the person engaging in that practice at the time. Moreover, enforcing legal rules and administering punishments for corrupt offences is both costly and impossible to undertake for every single incidence or each individual wrongdoer. Not everyone who has benefited from corruption in Nigeria will be punished, nor every corrupt transaction prosecuted.
The assumption that has informed such traditional efforts has been that by themselves new legislation and the establishment of anti-corruption bodies will lead to a discernible reduction in the incidence and popular perception of corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari has shown sincerity in his commitment to lead anti-corruption efforts in Nigeria, including through the consolidation of government payments and receipts through the implementation of a Treasury Single Account,12 strengthening whistleblowing incentives and protections, high-profile investigations of prominent individuals for large-scale theft of public funds, and the recovery of billions of naira by Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies.13
These efforts are essential, but cannot by themselves foster a sustainable, comprehensive reversal of long-established assumptions and practices in the absence of a reversal of public apathy and a collective will to achieve collective behavioural change. The relatively modest record of achievement of Nigeria’s anti-corruption strategy, and the evident persistence of this complex and pernicious phenomenon, suggest that there is a critical need for innovations aimed at addressing societal expectations and other characteristics driving corruption. This would support improved anti-corruption outcomes in Nigeria by stimulating necessary collective action.
Nigeria’s anti-corruption efforts must now be reinforced by a systematic understanding of why people engage in, or refrain from, corrupt activities
Conspicuously absent hitherto from Nigeria’s anti-corruption strategy has been a systematic effort to go beyond legal and institutional frameworks in order to better understand corruption as a social practice and to identify the underlying causes of citizens’ decisions to engage in – or avoid – corrupt activity. Corruption, like any other practice, whether negative or positive, is primarily an aggregate of individual behaviours that are sustained by particular social beliefs and expectations. To understand and tackle corruption, Nigeria’s anti-corruption efforts must now be reinforced by a systematic understanding of why people engage in, or refrain from, corrupt activities.
Measuring complex collective behaviour
There has been extensive empirical and theoretical research into corruption, with the aim of understanding and curbing it. Specialist tools have been developed to measure perceptions of corruption, and explanations have been presented about the causes and the persistence of this collective practice. Simple perceptions surveys that are commonly used in studies of corruption aim to understand how people feel or think about a particular topic. This method can be used to evaluate needs, establish baselines and analyse trends. Such survey techniques are predominantly qualitative and designed to measure views, perceptions and opinions rather than facts. In a typical perceptions survey, the key focus is to gather data on what people think rather than on their actions or behaviours. At their best therefore, these types of studies are an indirect way to measure the causes of behaviour, and particularly of complex collective behaviour.
A better understanding of how people respond to the different contexts in which corruption takes place, and of the beliefs or incentives that influence their behaviours and actions, can lead to more effective and context-specific strategies for tackling different forms of corruption.
Simply put, in order to change behaviour, it is necessary to understand the causes of that behaviour. This is critical especially with regard to designing prevention activities in an environment in which corruption is perceived to be rife and legal measures are complicated. A holistic approach to tackling corruption in Nigeria must consider those societal characteristics that may normalize corrupt behaviour or desensitize people to its impacts.
Why do certain practices persist, and how can they be changed?
People’s behaviour is often influenced ‘by what others do and by what others think should be done’.14 This means that the way people think and act is often dependent on what others think and do. These social influences also apply to corruption. Corruption has proved very difficult to curb, in large part because there are multiple drivers of corrupt practices, including preferences that are dependent on expectations about other people’s beliefs around other people’s behaviour.
Understanding the contextual meanings, norms and networks that influence individual behaviour can support policymakers in better addressing how these social frameworks encourage, reinforce or dissuade certain patterns of corrupt behaviour. This understanding is critical to designing innovative and effective policy interventions and messages to curb corruption.
Around the world, and across governments, regulatory bodies, public organizations and various sectors, lessons from the study of human behaviour and collective practices are increasingly influencing the design and implementation of public policy, drawing on empirical evidence about how people behave and, importantly, why they behave as they do.15 Insights from the fields of behavioural economics, social psychology and sociology have been shown to offer generally simple, convenient and cost-effective solutions to societal challenges while avoiding an increase in rules and penalties. Critical lessons can be drawn from the successes and failures of social campaigns targeted at curbing pernicious collective practices such as corruption.
By applying rigorous social science research methods to understanding what people believe others think and do, and why people do what they do, with regard to corrupt practices, it is possible to start delineating the different social drivers of corruption in Nigeria and, critically, the levers for influencing behaviour in the desired direction. On this basis, it is possible to design targeted interventions to help produce effective messaging and collective action that empowers communities against corruption.
To design and implement successful policy interventions capable of effecting the level of behavioural change required to make a significant contribution to tackling corruption in Nigeria, it is important to understand whether, and if so what kinds of, social beliefs and expectations support the persistence of corrupt practices. This in turn means it is crucial to ask whether people’s corrupt practices are motivated by what they think other people think and believe, and/or approve or disapprove of. If corruption, or at least certain forms of corruption, is in reality underpinned by a system of social beliefs, policy responses must seek to change these beliefs on a community-wide, broad-based, collective level.16
Moreover, if corruption in Nigeria manifests itself as a social practice, attempting to change the beliefs of a few individuals will not be enough to induce a change in collective behaviour.17 The scale of behavioural change required must be pursued using a persistent and systematic approach that is highly context-specific, and undertaken, owned and sustained by a critical mass of local actors seeking to forge a ‘new normal’.18
Despite a large body of research into the causes and consequences of corruption, evaluating the success or failure of policy interventions towards collective action or engagement on anti-corruption remains an unclear process. For instance, are policy interventions successful when more people go to prison for corruption? Is effectiveness measured through the reduction or elimination of the consequences of corruption, such as poverty, underdevelopment and poor public-service delivery? How can it be determined whether corruption has been reduced? Perceptions-based surveys that have traditionally been used to determine how successful countries have been at reducing corruption simply measure what people think about the practice, and not what drives the behaviours, how these have changed, or how problems of collective action might be better addressed.
The research underlying this report examines, from a ‘social norms’ perspective, the beliefs and expectations that sustain certain forms of corruption in Nigeria. Social norms are a particular kind of behavioural beliefs, expectations and values shared and endorsed by a particular group or society. This means that people’s behaviours are strongly influenced by what those around them are doing and think should be done.19
Disapproval of a practice, and the social consequences of failing to adhere to one’s community’s expectations – such as gossip, public shaming, or loss of credibility and status – are usually a powerful influence on the choices people make
Social norms are embedded markers of how people behave as members of a society, and have a strong influence on how they choose to act in different situations.20 They determine accepted forms of behaviour in a society, and act as indicators of what actions are appropriate and morally sound, or disapproved of and forbidden. Disapproval of a practice, and the social consequences of failing to adhere to one’s community’s expectations – such as gossip, public shaming, or loss of credibility and status – are usually a powerful influence on the choices people make. Equally powerful are the approval, social respectability and esteem attached to behaviour that is evaluated within one’s community as being right or acceptable.
In the context of anti-corruption in Nigeria, understanding these underlying social drivers helps in diagnosing which forms of corruption are underpinned by social norms, and which practices are driven by conventions, local customs or unmitigated circumstances.
This report makes the case that anti-corruption efforts in Nigeria can be designed or adjusted, based on lessons drawn from behavioural studies, to support greater gains in reducing practices such as bribery, extortion, nepotism and embezzlement. It presents new evidence on key social drivers that influence people’s decisions to engage in or avoid corrupt activity, as well as factors that may impede collective action against corruption. It also highlights lessons from some case studies of successful social campaigns and the critical ingredients for success or failure.
Chapter 2 summarizes the objectives and methodology of the study. Chapter 3 presents the survey data regarding the motivations that exist with regard to specific corrupt practices and behaviours. Chapter 4 analyses the research findings and the implications for anti-corruption policy interventions in terms of informing behavioural-change campaigns and stimulating collective action. In conclusion, the report proposes the integration of behavioural lessons in anti-corruption policymaking, and advocates strategies for expanding Nigeria’s knowledge base and capacity concerning behaviour- and social norms-based interventions and solutions.
The annex at the end of this report contains a methodology note that outlines the sampling methodology and implementation of the survey.
The effectiveness of the proposed interventions is highly sensitive to context and conditions. Therefore, any policy tools that are designed using the research findings and lessons in this report will need to be tested for suitability to each context, adjusted for what works (or does not) and then adapted to improve results. And critically, in order to be effective, anti-corruption messaging and interventions must be authentic and must connect with the target audience. Through clear and careful framing, they must also give ownership and agency to Nigeria’s citizens within the context of its impact.
5 While there seems to be a causal connection between high levels of corruption and lack of economic growth, some countries seem to be outliers in this regard. For example, China has historically demonstrated high economic growth and high levels of trust despite high levels of corruption. Uslaner, E. M. (2008), Corruption, inequality, and the rule of law: the bulging pocket makes the easy life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 82; Sindzingre, A. (2002), ‘A comparative analysis of African and East Asian corruption’, in Heidenheimer, A. J. and Johnston, M. (eds) (2002), Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts, New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction, p. 441.
6 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (2007), ‘Anti-Corruption Climate Change: it started in Nigeria’, speech by Antonio Maria Costa at 6th National Seminar on Economic Crime, Abuja, 13 November 2007.
7 This figure represents some 15 per cent of the total value of Nigeria’s trade over the period 2005–14, at $1.21 trillion. In 2014 alone illicit financial flows from Nigeria were estimated at $12.5 billion, representing 9 per cent of the total trade value of $139.6 billion in that year. See Global Financial Integrity (2017), Illicit Financial Flows to and from Developing Countries: 2005–2014, April 2017, http://www.gfintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GFI-IFF-Report-2017_final.pdf, pp. 30–34 (accessed 4 May 2017).
8 Nigeria accounted for 19 per cent of global maternal deaths in 2015 and was recorded to have made ‘no progress’ in achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing preventable maternal mortality rates by 75 per cent between 1990 and 2015. See World Health Organization (2015), Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2015: Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division, https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Trends-in-MMR-1990-2015_Full-report_243.pdf (accessed 17 Apr. 2017).
9 Nigeria’s rapid population growth and poor investments in education have put enormous pressure on the number of schools, facilities and teachers available for basic learning: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/children_1937.html. Moreover, at an estimated 10.5 million, Nigeria has the world’s largest number of out-of-school children: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/education.html (accessed 17 Apr. 2017).
10 At the time of writing, Nigeria was grappling with yet another meningitis outbreak, with more than 4,000 cases recorded since the outbreak began in December 2016. The disease has killed more people in communities in northwest Nigeria, where, as noted in one report, ‘access to hospitals is low and poverty is high’. See Oduah, C. ‘Nigeria tackles deadly meningitis outbreak amid vaccine scarcity’, 12 April 2017, https://www.voanews.com/a/nigeria-tackles-deadly-meningitis-outbreak-amid-vaccine-scarcity/3806872.html (accessed 17 Apr. 2017).
11 See for example Obuah, E. (2010), ‘Combating Corruption in Nigeria: The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’, African Studies Quarterly, 12(1), p. 18.
12 In August 2015 the Buhari administration directed the implementation of a Treasury Single Account to consolidate and manage all government revenue.
13 SBM Intelligence estimates that over $696 million was recovered by Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies between October 2015 and April 2017. This figure is the total recovered amount in local and foreign currencies and was collated by SBM Intelligence from open sources in the media and from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission website. For a breakdown of reported monetary recoveries, see http://sbmintel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/201704_EFCC.pdf (accessed 27 Apr. 2017).
14 Bicchieri, C., Lindemans, J. W. and Jiang, T. (2014), ‘A structured approach to a diagnostic of collective practices’, Frontiers in Psychology, 5 December 2014, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01418 (accessed 26 Apr. 2017).
15 For an in-depth discussion of the use and reach of behavioural insights in various policy sectors around the world and an analysis of over 100 applications, see OECD (2017), Behavioural Insights and Public Policy: Lessons from Around the World, Paris: OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264279480-en (accessed 26 Apr. 2017).
16 Fisman, R. and Golden, M. A. (2017). Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 256.
17 Bicchieri, C. and Mercier, H. (2014), ‘Norms and beliefs: how change occurs’, in Xenitidou, M. and Edmonds, B. (eds) (2014), The Complexity of Social Norms, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 37–54.
18 Ibid.
19 Bicchieri, C. (2005), The grammar of society: the nature and dynamics of social norms, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20 Ibid.