CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Corruption has been identified as one major obstacle militating against rapid growth and development of the society. Akwa Ibom State is blessed with abundant natural and human resources to the extent that some of these natural resources have never been extracted or tapped by the government, some natural resources are neglected by the government since the discovery of oil well, such as cocoa, timber, etc, while only crude oil is enjoying the biggest attention and has been the largest source of revenue to the government for over forty years. Since 1996 when Nigeria first featured in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), a research carried out by Transparency International (TI), a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) that assesses the level of corruption in different states of the country. Akwa Ibom State government officials are well known for their self servicing style of governance. Ogbeidi (2012), examined political leadership and corruption in Akwa Ibom since its creation, he opined that it is an incontrovertible fact that corruption has been the bane of development in all state Nigeria. Thus, without mincing words the phenomenon has ravaged the country and destroyed most of what is held as cherished national values. Unfortunately, the political class saddled with the responsibility of directing the affairs of the country have been the major culprit in perpetrating this act. Also Usman (1980) stated that pervasive corruption has remained a serious obstacle to economic development in Akwa Ibom.

Corruption inhibits human and social development. Public institutions are only public in name, because they are run, in fact, for the purpose of private accumulation of wealth. It is in the backdrop of the above assertions that this study has examined the problems and prospects of corruption in Akwa Ibom State context and how corruption has hindered development in the hindered and provides some recommendations in order to accelerate growth and development of Akwa Ibom state economy.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The state of corruption in Akwa Ibom has been categorized as endemic. Corruption has also been identified as one major obstacle to the growth and development of the Akwa Ibom State economy. Research has shown that corrupt practices have been perpetrated in governance, public and private places since the creation of Akwa Ibom State. Achebe (1984) wrote that “the problem Nigerian States are the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to their responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which is the hallmark of true leadership”. In the same vein, Storey (1953) wrote that “before the creation of various states, there have been cases of official misuse of resources for personal enrichment”. The magnitude of corruption has been increasing over the years and this has led to retarded growth and development in Akwa Ibom State. Though there has been lots of anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria over the years targeted to stem the spread of corruption in the states and the country at large, such as Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC) in 2000, and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003 after the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF).Corruption has also led to diversion of developmental resources of the state to private or personal use. This has contributed to the leakage of capital from Akwa Ibom State for illegal deposits abroad.

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