Fighting Corruption or Managing Perceptions? Institutional Integrity, Preventive Governance, and Anti-Corruption Reform in Nigeria

Corruption remains one of the most persistent impediments to democratic consolidation, institutional development,and sustainable governance in Nigeria. Despite successive anti-corruption campaigns, legislative reforms, and theproliferation of specialised institutions, public confidence in the state's capacity to address systemic corruption remainsfragile. This Perspective examines whether contemporary anti-corruption efforts are producing substantiveinstitutional transformation or primarily responding to the public perception of accountability. The article draws oninstitutional theory, contemporary governance scholarship, and debates on preventive governance. Its analysis is basedon secondary sources, including recent scholarly literature, governance and policy documents, reports of Nigeriananti-corruption institutions, and international governance assessments. The discussion focuses on the relationshipbetween institutional integrity, reactive enforcement, preventive governance, democratic accountability, politicalpatronage, and digital governance. The article argues that Nigeria's anti-corruption challenge is fundamentallyinstitutional rather than simply legal or political. Although institutions such as the Economic and Financial CrimesCommission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) haverecorded measurable enforcement outcomes, such outcomes provide only a partial account of institutionaleffectiveness. Sustainable reform requires greater attention to the conditions that allow corruption to occur, includingweak institutional independence, selective accountability, implementation deficits, political patronage, and inadequatepreventive safeguards. The article therefore argues for a shift from institutional proliferation towards institutionaleffectiveness, with preventive governance grounded in institutional independence, public-sector ethics, transparentsystems, democratic accountability, civic participation, and responsible technological innovation.