NJCL (2019) 39-48 © Law Journals 2019. All Rights Reserved Page 39 National Journal of Criminal Law ISSN: 2581-8244 (Online) Volume 2, Issue 2 www.stmjournals.com An Overview of Nigeria’s Legal Framework and Structural Position towards Corruption Saphy Lal Bullu* Lecturer, Faculty of Law, The Open University of Tanzania, Tanzania Abstract Nigeria is amongst the most corrupt countries recognised worldwide despite the fact that, the government of Nigeria implements various legal instruments with mandates for enforcement to fight against corruption. Yet, it proves the failure of its legislation and that is why it has been said that, there is no need of having multiple instruments in fighting against corruption. Succession in fighting against corruption depends on great level of enforcement and government’s ability to work on it. This article selects legislations and institution agencies in order to establish the extent of the provisions as stipulated to see whether are adequate and sufficient to fight corruption in Nigeria.. In additional to that, this article intends to furnish an overview of Nigeria’s legal framework and structural situation in order to anticipates to set out the leading legislations in Nigeria which are utilized as key instruments to fight against corruption in order to provide government’ positions and to specify the extent of these provisions whether are adequate and sufficient to fight corruption or not in Nigeria. Keywords: Corruption, anti-corruption agencies, corrupt transactions, corrupt person, legal instruments, legislation, enforcement, provisions, legal framework, adequate. *Author for correspondence E-mail: saphylal@yahoo.com INTRODUCTION As it has been proved, corruption is not a new phenomenon [1] exists with a limp of human kind, [2] and its existence affects the status of the nation and its citizens [3]. In other way round it has been proved that, corruption exist everywhere, and Nigeria is one of the country's where corrupt activities affects the entire nation [4]. Since its independence, corruption remained one of the most devastating issues facing Nigeria and it has been one of the obstructions to the country's developmental efforts [5]. In Nigeria, it has been ascertained that corruption is a notorious circumstance of the state misfortunes which pass an infection to all spheres of the nation including social, economic, and politic [6]. CORRUPTION AND NIGERIA’S PERCEPTION Corruption is not a new phenomenon and affect all facets of Nigeria [7], and it has been perceived by the TI Corruption report [8] as 'a country’ deeply rooted in chaos of moral corruption' [9]. Like any other countries, the Nigerian’s government implements various legal frameworks to fight against corruption with various enforcements [10], by providing different legislation and various anti- corruption agencies in order to transform the nation. The Nigerian’ government searched for the better solutions to fight aginst corruption in a manner that had not been followed before. Nigeria has been perceived as a country that is deeply rooted in chaos of moral corruption [11]. The TI Corruption report of 2018 showed that Nigerian was ranked 144 out of 180 [12] countries. This rank demonstrates that corruption is still a problem in Nigeria despite of having various legislation and various anti-corruption agencies to transform the nation. For the purposes of this paper, selected legislation and ACAs are set out in this part as the leading legislation to fight corruption in order to provide existing provisions to see to what extent these provisions are adequate and sufficient to fight corruption in Nigeria.