Abstract

The paper focused on governance in Nigeria vis-à-vis global corruption. It examined the various ways by which global corruption has affected governance in Nigeria. Key concepts were discussed, namely, corruption, governance, global corruption and characteristics of global corruption. The paper which defined corruption as impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principle, also identified its causes as greed, love of money, and excessive pleasure, among others. Corruption was found to have a symbiotic relationship with poverty. Global corruption, characterized by the rich western countries supporting dictatorship in developing countries and destabilizing democracies in these countries for their selfish purpose, is found to be responsible for many failing states in the Third World countries, Nigeria as a typical example. While the paper identified the attributes of good governance as transparency, rule of law, accountability, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and responsiveness, these were found to be almost out of place in the governance system in Nigeria thus contributing to governance failure in the country. The paper suggested the way forward as being transparency in every transaction, especially transactions between the donor western countries and the recipient countries, among others. The paper concluded that in addition to internal causes, namely ethnicity, religious intolerance, nepotism, and bad leadership, global corruption has greatly contributed to governance failure in Nigeria.

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