Corruption fights back: Localizing transparency and EITI in the Nigerian “penkelemes”

Abstract

This study explores how the global transparency norm is localized in the Nigerian extractive industry. Transparency is theorized as a process which can be analyzed in terms of rules, interactions, power games, and context. Nigeria is conceptualized as a “penkelemes”—a concept which denotes how traditions, norms, and practices are intertwined with a system of corruption, kinship, and patronage networks. Three main insights emerge. First, the complex motives and ability of local actors to balance demands for transparency from the international community with participation in the corrupt local political system determines which international norms they adopt. Second, the struggle for power over the transparency process determines the local understanding of transparency. Third, the link between transparency and corruption is paradoxical. Corruption conditions the enactment of transparency but even this corrupted transparency is useful in fighting corruption. Thus, transparency becomes part of the problem as well as part of the solution.

Extractive sector governance: does a nexus of accountability render local extractive industries transparency initiatives ineffective?

“…18. Ejiogu et al (2021) insightfully describe a similar situation in their discussion of the transparency "paradox" surrounding NEITI. However, their focus is on the way the concept of reporting is understood, rather than the structure of NEITI as an accountability system.…”

“…Ultimately, tensions within NEITI's operating relationships, like the inability to enforce public reputational accountability or in the power of the Presidency overriding the authority of the EITI, facilitate its inability to deliver public accountability to citizens. Although prior research has attributed NEITI's ineffectiveness to external interests (Ejiogu et al, 2019(Ejiogu et al, , 2021, our research contributes an understanding that is rooted within the design of NEITI as an accountability system. In this way, we posit that NEITI's ineffectiveness has at least as much to do with its design as an accounting-based accountability system, or as a technology of hubris, as it does with external factors and the quality of the information disclosed.…”

“…However, in so doing, NEITI is provided with a social license to operate amongst the same citizens whom it consistently fails, which can subvert regulatory reform efforts (Cortese and Andrew, 2020), and insulate industry actors from scrutiny by making it seem like a process whereby "everyone can gain and where everyone is on equal standing" (Visser, 2012, p. 9) Failure to sanction has been shown to sometimes be driven by a desire for institutional legitimacy as political and economic objectives are being pursued (Bakre et al, 2017;Lassou et al, 2019;Otusanya, 2011). Although the operational relationship between the EITI and NEITI was articulated across official documents (EITI, 2019a;NEITI, 2007), as the EITI was localised in NEITI (Ejiogu et al, 2021), its operational scope became defined by the constitutional authority of the Presidency (NEITI, 2007) rather than the EITI's power over member states (EITI, 2019a). This allowed the Presidency to exert power over NEITI through its control over access to funding and resource provisions, but even more directly, by controlling NSWG members, as for the term-shortening discussed by the NSWG members we interviewed.…”

“…NEITI’s ineffectiveness has been attributed to external interests through disclosure practices that essentially mask the complex underlying realities (e.g. Ejiogu et al , 2019) and a lack of “localizing” efforts to cater for the unique Nigerian context (Ejiogu et al , 2021). This means that the way in which the EITI has been localised in Nigeria (Ejiogu et al , 2019, p. 12) could have predetermined its ineffectiveness by creating inadequate contextual conditions for successful implementation.…”

“…. Examining this internalisation or "localization",Ejiogu et al (2021) discuss how asymmetrical local power relationships can subvert the nature and quality of information produced, andEjiogu et al (2019, p. 8) highlight that: . .…”