Niger Presidential Guard overthrow president
Army officers in the West African country of Gabon have declared a coup on national television, throwing out the results of Saturday’s allegedly fraudulent election.
President Ali Bongo Ondimba, 64, whose family has been in power for over 50 years, won a third term by taking just under two-thirds of the vote, but now faces exile.
This is but the latest in a slew of militaristic uprisings on the developing continent, from Niger earlier this year to Burkina Faso last year and Guinea the year before that. Corruption, compounded by stacking crises of late, has been at the heart of each and every one.
Transparency International (TI), the NGO leading the fight against corruption globally, has been compiling an annual index since 1995.
Looking at their latest report, Express.co.uk has mapped the countries perceived as the most and least corrupt.
READ MORE: Inside the overthrown Gabon president’s £12.8m luxury car collection
TI defines corruption as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain.”
To compose its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the organisation draws a “poll of polls” of expert assessments and opinion surveys – including the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit, the World Bank and US-based think tank Freedom House.
A total of 180 countries worldwide are then assigned a score from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (squeaky clean) and ranked accordingly.
The global average has remained unchanged for over a decade, with a score of 43 out of 100. While 155 countries were found to have made no significant progress stamping out corruption between 2012 and 2022, 26 fell to their lowest-ever scores last year.
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According to the index, Gabon is currently 136th out of 180 in the world, with a score of 29 out of 100 – having undergone a steady decline since a high of 37 back in 2014.
At the bottom of the list are Somalia (12/100), Syria and South Sudan (13/100), Venezuela (14/100) and Yemen (16/100).
At the top is Denmark, with a score of 90 out ot 100, followed by Finland and New Zealand (87/100), Norway (84/100) and Singapore (83/100).
The UK, meanwhile, tumbled to its lowest-ever position in the CPI after a sharp decline in 2022. With a score of just 73 – its lowest in over a decade – the country fell seven places from 11th to 18th worldwide, behind the likes of Uruguay, Hong Kong and Estonia.
Commenting on the index, Daniel Eriksson, TI’s Chief Executive Officer said: “Leaders can fight corruption and promote peace all at once. Governments must open up space to include the public in decision-making – from activists and business owners to marginalised communities and young people.
“In democratic societies, the people can raise their voices to help root out corruption and demand a safer world for us all.”
Samuel Kaninda, the group’s Africa Regional Advisor, said: “Right now, people across the African continent are facing difficulties from every direction – with food shortages, rising living costs, an ongoing pandemic and numerous ongoing conflicts.
“Yet despite the role it plays in fuelling every one of these crises, most governments in the region continue to neglect anti-corruption efforts. Africans need their leaders to go beyond words and commitments and take bold, decisive action to root out pervasive corruption at this key moment – or the situation will only continue to deteriorate.”
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