BEYOND THE CORRUPTION FIGHT: AFRICA MUST RECLAIM ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THE POWERFUL
After three decades of laws, agencies, reforms and donor-funded interventions, corruption persists across Africa. At a high-level dialogue in Lagos, a more fundamental question emerged: Have we been fighting corruption without confronting the power that sustains it?
By Monday Osasah
For more than three decades, Africa has fought corruption. We have enacted laws, established anti-corruption commissions, strengthened procurement systems, created transparency initiatives, recovered assets, prosecuted public officials and invested millions of dollars in institutional reforms.
Yet corruption has refused to disappear.
State capture persists. Illicit financial flows continue. Public resources meant for hospitals, schools, roads, water and social protection still find their way into private pockets. Citizens watch public officials accumulate unexplained wealth while millions struggle with poverty, unemployment and deteriorating public services.
Perhaps, therefore, the question is no longer simply how Africa can fight corruption. Perhaps the more uncomfortable question is: Have we been fighting the wrong battle?
That was the provocative question at the heart of the two-day High-Level Dialogue on Anti-Corruption and Accountability held in Lagos on 10–11 September 2026. Convened by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), in partnership with the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI) at Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, with support from the Open Society Foundations, the dialogue brought together government and anti-corruption officials, civil society organisations, social movements, academics, philanthropy, media, business, women and young leaders from across Africa.
The theme itself was deliberately unsettling: “Have We Lost the Anti-Corruption and Accountability Debate? Reflections on Power, Politics and Three Decades of Anti-Corruption Work in Africa.”
The discussions suggested that Africa may not have lost the anti-corruption battle entirely. But the continent urgently needs to rethink what it is fighting, who is doing the fighting and, fundamentally, where power resides.
Chukwuemeka Eze captured the dilemma with a striking metaphor: “If the cat wants to be a leopard, it has to reduce its appetite for mice.” After years of significant donor investment with limited results, he challenged participants to interrogate whether the accountability struggle has become too institutional. How do we guard the guard? Can democracy survive without public legitimacy? Where is power allocated? And where should the accountability debate go from here?
THE PROBLEM MAY BE BIGGER THAN CORRUPTION
One of the strongest ideas to emerge from Lagos was that corruption cannot be understood outside the architecture of power.
Who controls political and economic power? Who writes the rules? Who benefits when those rules are broken? And who suffers the consequences?
After decades of anti-corruption agencies, laws and reforms, corruption, state capture and illicit financial flows remain deeply embedded across the continent. The persistence of these problems raises questions about whether Africa’s accountability architecture has kept pace with how corruption and power have evolved.
The emerging argument was simple but profound: accountability is bigger than anti-corruption.
It is ultimately about who exercises power, in whose interest that power is exercised, and what happens when it is abused.
Jacob Mati connected this crisis to declining public trust in government and challenged participants to ask whether existing accountability indicators remain fit for purpose. His observation that “every single inflated contract is a road that is not built” brought the consequences of corruption home. The same contract could represent a classroom not constructed, a hospital without equipment or potable water that never reaches a community.
Sam Amadi pushed the conversation towards the relationship between the state and the citizen. If people do not feel that they own the state, he argued, their capacity to demand accountability will remain weak.
Millions of citizens see government as something distant, controlled by politicians, bureaucrats, and elites. Elections come and go, but the fundamental relationship between citizens and power often remains unchanged. Without citizenship ownership, accountability becomes an administrative ritual rather than a democratic culture.
INSTITUTIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH
Africa certainly does not lack institutions.
Nigeria has the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission. Across the continent are anti-corruption bodies, auditors-general, procurement agencies, parliamentary committees and financial intelligence institutions.
But institutions can only be as strong as the political environment within which they operate.
Themba Maseko argued that the challenge is not necessarily the absence of accountability structures but the implementation of strategies and political capture of institutions. Where appointments, patronage and elite interests compromise supposedly independent institutions, accountability becomes selective. Citizens are increasingly connecting corruption with poor service delivery, but transparency must extend to procurement and political parties, while anti-corruption strategies must recognise that corruption often operates through networks rather than isolated individuals.
The question therefore returns: Who guards the guard?
Sam Amadi pushed the institutional argument further. Institutions cannot simply be imported, legislated into existence and expected to work independently of society. They must reflect history, values, social relations and the lived realities of citizens. Accountability must therefore be rooted in civic citizenship, the capacity of citizens to make demands upon the state and compel it to respond.
Femi Falana reinforced this argument in his keynote. While rejecting the proposition that Africa has lost the accountability fight, he warned that despite the proliferation of laws and institutions, accountability has become over-bureaucratised.
The anti-corruption struggle, he reminded participants, did not begin with anti-corruption agencies. Citizens and communities demanded accountability long before contemporary commissions were created. The challenge is therefore to reconnect institutional accountability with citizen action.
FOLLOW THE MONEY, BUT ALSO FOLLOW THE POWER
Hauwa Mustapha introduced another uncomfortable dimension: the global political economy of corruption.
Imagine an Africa with zero corruption, she challenged participants. Who benefits, and who loses?
Africa’s corruption story cannot be told only through corrupt African politicians and public officials. It must interrogate multinational corporations, extractive industries, international financial systems, and the movement of illicit wealth from Africa into jurisdictions outside the continent.
If stolen resources leave Africa, where do they go? Who receives them? Who protects them? Who profits from extractive arrangements that impoverish communities while enriching corporations and political elites?
Mustapha challenged African civil society to reconnect anti-corruption struggles to grassroots realities and interrogate the influence of multinational corporations and international dependency relationships.
Falana reinforced this international dimension. Recalling former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s description of Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt,” he questioned the contradiction of Western jurisdictions condemning African corruption while receiving and warehousing proceeds stolen from the continent.
The accountability chain, therefore, cannot stop with the African official who steals. It must extend to banks, corporations, professional intermediaries and jurisdictions that receive, protect or profit from illicit wealth.
Falana also called attention to illicit financial flows connected to mining, minerals and petroleum resources, arguing that these dimensions receive less attention than political corruption.
This matters because corruption is rarely a one-person transaction.
Behind every inflated contract is a chain. Behind every illicit financial flow are facilitators. Behind every captured institution are interests. And behind every stolen public resource is a citizen denied something that should have been theirs.
FROM ANTI-CORRUPTION TO ACCOUNTABILITY
Perhaps the most consequential intellectual shift during the dialogue was the call to move away from seeing corruption merely as criminal behaviour and towards understanding accountability as a system of power and consequences.
As Amadi argued, if we focus exclusively on corruption, we may end up “chasing the wind.” The stronger strategy is to build structures that change incentives and make those exercising power answerable for their actions.
Accountability asks more fundamental questions: Who made the decision? Who benefited? Who paid the price? Who knew? Who should have acted? And what consequences followed?
These questions move accountability beyond the courtroom and into everyday citizenship.
Falana’s intervention complemented this argument by calling attention to the political economy and language of corruption. Any serious response must interrogate not only politicians but also professional intermediaries, political appointments, institutional capture and the structures that allow abuse of public resources to flourish.
The point is not to diminish the importance of prosecuting corrupt individuals. It is to recognise that arresting individuals without transforming the structures that continually reproduce corruption leaves the underlying system intact.
WOMEN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE MISSING VOICES
The dialogue also exposed another weakness in Africa’s accountability architecture: too many people remain outside the structures through which power is scrutinised.
Racheal Mugabi argued for an intersectional approach that brings women, young people and persons with disabilities into accountability institutions and processes. Young people should not simply be recipients of government programmes; they should participate in institutional governance and use digital tools to scrutinise government.
“If we want to change things, we must start with classrooms,” she argued.
Asiphe Mxalisa similarly questioned the place of women within accountability systems, arguing that women are often not structurally built into them. She challenged young Africans to interrogate how power is socialised and to rethink inherited assumptions.
Lydia Amoah drew attention to sexual corruption in universities, sexual harassment and the abuse of institutional authority for sexual advantage. These forms of corruption are often hidden by cultures of silence, fear and unequal power.
Accountability therefore cannot only concern missing money.
It must also concern abused power.
THE YOUTH ARE NOT WAITING FOR TOMORROW
Omano Edigheji rejected the familiar cliché that young people are merely the leaders of tomorrow.
They are leaders today.
But that assertion carries responsibility.
Young Africans must understand history, engage politics, interrogate institutions and organise around public issues. Student movements once played critical roles in struggles against injustice and authoritarianism. Rebuilding that tradition requires bringing students and student unions into contemporary accountability movements.
Falana’s recollection of the weakening and, in some cases, banning of student unionism on campuses added another dimension. Universities must be spaces where young people learn not only academic subjects but also how to question power and organise around injustice.
Cynthia Mbamalu reminded participants that youth mobilisation has already produced tangible political reforms. The Not Too Young To Run campaign demonstrated what organised young citizens can achieve, while citizen engagement continues to shape electoral reform.
Participation, however, depends on information. People cannot demand answers to questions they do not know they are entitled to ask.
DIGITAL OUTRAGE IS NOT ACCOUNTABILITY
Technology has dramatically changed the terrain.
A scandal can travel across Africa within minutes. Hashtags can trend. Videos can go viral. Citizens can mobilise outrage without leaving their homes.
But visibility is not the same as accountability.
Job Mwaura cautioned that digital outrage can disappear as quickly as it emerges. Digital visibility may begin an accountability process, but it cannot substitute for sustained organisation, relationships and action.
Arigbabu Sulaimon made the complementary point: the challenge is staying on an issue until consequences follow. The ultimate objective should be prevention because recovering stolen resources after the damage has been done is enormously costly.
The lesson for contemporary civic activism is clear:
A hashtag is not a movement. A viral video is not institutional reform. Outrage without organisation eventually becomes noise.
Accountability requires persistence.
JOURNALISM MUST RETURN POWER TO CITIZENS
The media also came under scrutiny.
Moturayo Alaka argued that journalism must go beyond meeting deadlines and reporting events. Journalists must understand the issues, ask the right questions, and connect governance failures to the everyday realities of citizens.
“Journalism is the first draft of history,” she reminded the audience.
But journalism that does not enable citizens to understand their rights is defective.
This matters because corruption thrives not only on secrecy but also on ignorance.
A citizen who understands a government budget can ask questions. A community that knows what was appropriated for its road can demand delivery. A woman who understands her rights can challenge abuse. A young person with credible information can interrogate political propaganda.
Information, therefore, is power. And access to information is an accountability instrument.
RECLAIMING AFRICAN VALUES
Another powerful proposition from the dialogue was the need to reconnect accountability with African social values and philosophies.
Long before modern anti-corruption commissions existed, African communities had systems of social responsibility, communal sanctions, reputation and moral accountability.
Lydia Amoah observed that citizens sometimes demonstrate greater accountability towards traditional leaders because those institutions are rooted in culture and community relationships. Cynthia Mbamalu pointed to philosophies such as Ubuntu as potential foundations for rebuilding collective responsibility.
This does not mean romanticising traditional institutions. It means recognising that accountability cannot survive through laws alone.
It requires values. It requires culture. It requires citizens who believe that stealing public resources is not evidence of cleverness or success but an assault on the community.
INSTITUTIONS STILL MATTER
The dialogue did not dismiss formal anti-corruption institutions.
Wilson Uwujaren noted that the fight against corruption predates contemporary institutions such as EFCC and ICPC, while highlighting the role of investigations, asset recovery, student engagement and systemic reviews.
Participants nevertheless stressed that oversight bodies require genuine independence if they are to hold politically powerful actors accountable.
Otive Igbuzor reinforced the need to distinguish among civil society organisations rather than treating civil society as a monolithic bloc, while Edeatan Ojo argued that supporting anti-corruption institutions should never prevent citizens and civil society from criticising them when they act wrongly.
Institutions matter.
But institutions alone cannot save society.
THE REVOLUTION MUST COME FROM BELOW
After two days of interrogation, disagreement, reflection and uncomfortable questions, one message stood above the others:
Africa’s accountability struggle must return to the citizen.
Government cannot hold itself accountable. Anti-corruption agencies cannot, by themselves, transform societies. Donors cannot import accountability. Civil society organisations cannot substitute themselves for citizens. And laws cannot enforce themselves.
Accountability becomes meaningful when ordinary people possess the information, organisation, confidence and collective power to ask those who govern:
What did you do with our resources? Who benefited from this decision? Why was this contract awarded? Where is the school? Where is the hospital? Where is the road? Where is the justice?
Falana’s call to “mobilise the victims of corruption” therefore resonated with the broader message emerging from the dialogue. Those who pay the highest price for corruption must cease to be treated merely as victims; they must become organised agents of accountability.
That is why the Lagos dialogue culminated in the Lagos Declaration on Anti-Corruption and Accountability, a continental call to move Africa’s anti-corruption work “from declaration to implementation.”
The challenge before Africa is therefore no longer to establish another anti-corruption agency, organise another conference or produce another declaration.
The challenge is to build a culture in which power fears consequences.
A society where citizens refuse to celebrate unexplained wealth; where women and young people are not spectators in governance; where journalists interrogate power rather than merely report it; where technology strengthens citizen agency rather than producing temporary outrage; where institutions are independent enough to investigate the powerful; and where multinational corporations and international financial actors are subjected to the same scrutiny demanded of African public officials.
It must be a society where public officials understand that public resources belong to the public and citizens understand that accountability is not something government gives them.
It is something they must demand.
Perhaps Africa has not lost the anti-corruption debate after all.
Perhaps we have simply reached the point where fighting corruption is no longer enough.
The next frontier is accountability.
And this time, the struggle must be about power, people and consequences.
Osasah wrote from #3B, Niger Avenue, Apo, Abuja.