CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA'S FOREIGN SERVICE: SOME EMPIRICAL THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

Discourse on corruption in Nigeria and even in the advanced democracies focus on domestic affairs and domestic agencies. A few have focused on the defense establishment and even fewer on intelligence agencies. This paper therefore, shall examine a 'virgin' area which is the foreign affairs apparatus. A lot is going on unnoticed in that area because it is traditionally a field that is shrouded in secrecy. Yet, no one cares to ask why our embassies are always indebted with some unable to pay rents and school fees of their children although governments have from time to time claimed that one of the records of their achievements was settling the debts incurred by our foreign missions? At the same time our diplomats come back with heavy loads of containers of goods and merchandise, at a point in time making the premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a market place. The researcher studied documents in form of quarterly reports of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Annual Reports of the Senate and House Committee on Foreign Affairs and personal observation conducted in one of the Nigerian Embassies in West Africa to collect data. The major finding is that corruption has permeated the foreign service of Nigeria. How and when this rot began is not so much the issue as the magnitude of the problem. Two major recommendations are that the National Assembly should intensify its oversight function over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian press should exploit to the fullest the freedom of information law to expose corrupt practices in the diplomatic service.