Attitudes and Perception of Corrupt Practices among Public Officials in the Agricultural Sector in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Corruption constitutes greater challenge threatening the wellbeing of our economy more than other social malaise, yet it has not been a major focus of social research. Attitudes and perception of corrupt practices among public officers in the agricultural sector in southwestern Nigeria was therefore investigated. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 174 public officers from Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) and Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MANR) from Oyo, Ekiti and Osun States. Data was collected using structured questionnaire on respondents’ perception and attitude to different forms of corruption. Data were summarized using frequency counts, percentages, mean and charts. Majority (89.0%) of respondents indicated favourable attitude to influence peddling, patronage (78.0%), pork barreling (70.0%), private use of government resources (65.0%) and bureaucratic conflict of interest (56.0%). At least 50.0% of respondents from each of ADP and MANR showed favourable attitude to corrupt practices. More than half (52.3%) of the respondents had favourable perception of corruption. Majority of the respondents from ADP (52.4%) and MANR (52.2%) indicated a favourable perception of corruption. No significant difference existed in attitude (t=0.954; p>0.05) and perception (t=0.787; p>0.05) of corruption between respondents from the ADP and MANR. A veritable culture of corruption and a high level of tolerance for most forms of corruption prevailed among the public officials in the agricultural sector in southwestern Nigeria. Public orientation using the media and other public enlightenment strategies in order to engender attitudinal change among corrupt public officials should be pursued as a matter of national emergency.

Keywords: Perception of corruption, corrupt attitudes, agricultural sector, southwestern Nigeria.