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Petty crimes and corruption constitute
serious obstacles to conducting business in Nigeria, a study jointly
carried out by the European Union, United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and National
Bureau of Statistics, has shown.

About 50 percent of Nigerian businesses
were victims of crime in the last one year, while a third have to pay
bribes when coming in contact with the public sector, particularly the
Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). The
report of the survey, ‘NBS/EFCC Business Crime and Corruption Surve,’
was presented in Abuja yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics.
It was carried out in 2007 as part of the project “Support to EFCC and
the Nigerian Judiciary” funded by the European Union with 25 million
Euros.

Serious obstacles

“The survey reveals
that for more than 70% of Nigerian businesses, crime and corruption
constitute the most serious obstacles to conducting business in
Nigeria,” stated the report. “Indeed it turned out that on average more
than 50% of Nigerian businesses become victims of crime at least once a
year. At the same time more than a third of business seem to be forced
to pay bribes when coming into contact with the public sector. In
particular, police and customs appear to be affected.” According to a
statement by the EU in Nigeria yesterday in Abuja, the survey covered
over 2000 businesses across the country and sectors of the economy and
was aimed at gathering the perception and experiences of businesses
with regard to corruption and crime, as well as their opinion regarding
the efforts of the Nigerian government.

Ugo Sokari, public relations officer for the US, said that the
presentation of the report was attended by large group of stakeholders,
including representatives of anti-corruption agencies, public sector
institutions, academia, civil society as well as the private sector and
media. The participants discussed the findings of the survey and
reaffirmed the key importance of the data for the purpose of policy
development as well as benchmarking the performance of government
initiatives and institutions in the fight against crime and corruption.