At a high-level dialogue in Lagos, African scholars, civil society leaders, activists, and practitioners examined whether three decades of anti-corruption efforts have delivered meaningful accountability and whether the conversation needs to change.
What does three decades of fighting corruption amount to if citizens still struggle to see accountability in practice?
This question was deliberately placed at the centre of the High-Level Dialogue on Anti-Corruption and Accountability, held at The Lagos Continental Hotel on September 10–11 under the theme, “Have We Lost the Anti-Corruption and Accountability Debate?”, with a sub-theme focused on power, politics, and three decades of anti-corruption work in Africa.
The two-day dialogue moved beyond treating corruption as a problem of individual wrongdoing and opened up a much larger conversation about institutions, political power, civic participation, and whether the architecture built over decades is actually capable of delivering the accountability that African citizens expect.
Nigeria currently scores 26 out of 100 on Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index and ranks 142nd out of 182 countries. The index also points to continuing governance challenges across Sub-Saharan Africa, where weak democratic institutions and restrictions on civic space continue to undermine efforts to tackle corruption.
Against that backdrop, the Lagos dialogue asked a more fundamental question than whether corruption is increasing or decreasing: Has the way we have been talking about accountability kept pace with the problem? Three decades later, what has changed?
The dialogue brought together the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI) at Wits Business School, the Open Society Foundations, African Philanthropy Forum, TrustAfrica, and the Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), with a stated objective of critically examining the trajectories and challenges of anti-corruption efforts across the continent.
The programme was designed to bring different perspectives into the conversation rather than place responsibility for accountability solely on governments or enforcement agencies. The opening remarks came from Dr Otive Igbuzor, Founding Executive Director of Centre LSD, Chukwuemeka Eze of the Open Society Foundation, and Prof. Jacob Mati, Deputy Director for Academic Programmes at CAPSI.
Then came the question that framed the rest of the day.
“Have We Lost the Accountability Debate?”
Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria Femi Falana, SAN, delivered the keynote address, reflecting on three decades of anti-corruption work in Africa.
His answer to the question at the heart of the dialogue was clear: Africa has not lost the accountability debate. What has been lost, he argued, is sight of the purpose of accountability and, crucially, who owns the responsibility for holding power to account.
Across the continent, considerable effort has gone into building an anti-corruption and accountability architecture. African countries have enacted laws, established institutions, adopted policies, and created regional mechanisms to strengthen accountability and combat corruption. Significant resources have also been invested in these efforts. Yet corruption persists.
For Mr Falana, this presents a more fundamental challenge than simply asking whether existing laws or institutions are sufficient. If the architecture exists, and resources have been committed to making it work, who is ultimately responsible for holding those in power accountable?
It is a question that shifts the conversation from the machinery of anti-corruption to the people and institutions that must use that machinery and to the citizens whose interests accountability is ultimately meant to protect.
Rather than allowing the keynote to stand as a conclusion, the facilitator immediately opened it up for discussion, creating space for participants to interrogate the central arguments and bring perspectives from across the room into the conversation.
The first major panel of the day, “Three Decades On: Has Africa’s Accountability Architecture Delivered?”, took that question further. Facilitated by Dr Tendai Murisa of the Svivo Institute, the panel brought together Dr Sam Amadi of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought; Comrade Hauwa Mustapha, Convener of the Movement for the Transformation of Nigeria (MOTiON); Prof. Themba Maseko, Head of School at Wits School of Governance; and Dr Emmanuel Akwetey of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG).
The panel’s central question was therefore not whether Africa has an accountability architecture. It clearly does. The question is whether that architecture is delivering accountability in practice.
That opened the door to a broader conversation about what needs to be rethought, what can be strengthened and, importantly, what African countries can learn from one another.
Across the continent, there are different experiences of anti-corruption reform and accountability that offer lessons, even if they cannot simply be transplanted from one country to another. The task is to understand what has worked, why it has worked, and what elements might be adapted to different national contexts.
The afternoon panel, “Accountability from Below: Women, Youth and Grassroots Power,” reinforced this shift by bringing women, young people, and grassroots actors into the accountability conversation. Facilitated by Vuyokazi Futshane of CAPSI, the session featured Dr Asiphe Mxalisa, Racheal Ddungu Mugabi, and Dr Lydia Amoah.
Their inclusion reflected an important premise of the dialogue: accountability cannot belong only to institutions. It must also belong to the people, and people need the knowledge, tools and protection to demand it.
This brought the conversation closer to the realities of citizens and communities, while also raising the role of other actors in strengthening accountability. Civil society, philanthropy, researchers, and the media can all help ensure that information reaches citizens, that issues of public interest remain visible, and that those in positions of power are subject to sustained public scrutiny.
From debate to action
Day Two opened with reflections from the floor, as participants shared perspectives on the work their organisations are undertaking in their respective countries. Contributions came from Itunuoluwa Soniregun of the Lagos Youth Parliament in Nigeria, Ebere Baegbu of the CLEEN Foundation in Nigeria, Keneilwe Sadir Mapena, an election observer for SADC in Botswana, Siboniso Nyide of Corruption Watch in South Africa, and Komlan Messie of WACSOF in Togo.
These reflections provided a bridge between the broader institutional questions raised on Day One and the practical realities of accountability work across different national contexts.
The morning’s third panel, “From Practice to Possibility: Rethinking Africa’s Accountability Future,” facilitated by Dr Olawunmi Oni-Buraimoh of Lagos State University, brought together Dr Job Mwaura, a digital media scholar; Mr Arigbabu Sulaimon of HEDA Resource Centre; and Cynthia Mbamalu of Yiaga Africa.
The discussion considered what a more workable accountability future for the continent might look like in practice, moving the conversation from diagnosing the limitations of existing systems towards exploring what could be done differently.
This was followed by “Where Does the Accountability Debate Go from Here?”, facilitated by Prof. Omano Edigheji. The session brought regulators directly into the conversation, with Prince Hassan Mohammed, Director Special at Nigeria’s Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and Wilson Uwujaren of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), drawing on their experience within anti-corruption agencies.
They were joined by Prof. Themba Maseko, Head of School at Wits School of Governance, who brought the South African experience into the discussion, focusing on the role of the Public Protector.
Prof. Maseko described South Africa as a case study in building an anti-corruption architecture that has delivered mixed results. The Public Protector’s office is high-profile and widely used by citizens to report abuse of power, but its investigative reach is constrained.
Where oversight bodies have failed, South Africa has increasingly turned to judicial commissions of inquiry, including the Zondo Commission on state capture and the Madlanga Commission. The scale of the resources required for such interventions also highlighted the cost of accountability. The Zondo Commission’s cost has been estimated at around a billion rand, while the cost of the Madlanga Commission continues to accumulate. At the same time, their work has since contributed to senior police officials and politicians facing charges, illustrating both the possibilities and the significant resources required for effective accountability.
The discussion reinforced a theme that had emerged throughout the two days: accountability requires more than institutions on paper. It requires institutions that are independent, adequately resourced and capable of acting when power is abused.
The Lagos Declaration
The dialogue closed with the adoption of the Lagos Declaration on Anti-Corruption and Accountability, translating many of the discussions from the two days into a set of commitments.
Several commitments spoke directly to the architecture question raised on Day One. Participants called for anti-corruption institutions to be protected from political capture through transparent appointment processes, secure financing, and protection from intimidation.
The declaration also called for a shift in emphasis from prosecuting corruption after the fact towards designing systems in procurement, public finance, asset declaration, and digital oversight that make corruption harder to commit and easier to detect.
Consistent with the previous day’s discussion on grassroots power, the declaration placed particular emphasis on women, young people, and civic actors. It committed to expanding civic education, access to information, participatory budgeting, and community-led monitoring, while calling for stronger protection of whistleblowers, journalists, and human rights defenders.
Participants also pushed the debate beyond conventional legal and institutional levers, calling for African-centred approaches that draw on the continent’s own philosophies, languages, and indigenous accountability practices.
The declaration closed on the importance of socialising values around accountability. Laws and institutions alone cannot sustain accountable societies without a shared culture that makes the abuse of public trust socially unacceptable — one that begins early, in families, schools, and communities, and extends into a Pan-African movement linking anti-corruption institutions and civil society across borders.
The dialogue also welcomed its youngest participant, 19-year-old Chidemwa, a youth ambassador at the AfriTrade National Diaspora Committee, who attended as a guest of one of the participants.
Ultimately, the Lagos dialogue was not simply an assessment of three decades of anti-corruption work. It was a challenge to rethink what accountability should look like and who should be responsible for making it work.
If three decades have produced laws, institutions, policies, and considerable investment, the next step may be to look more closely at what is working, learn from approaches across the continent, and rethink how accountability can become more effective, more participatory, and more firmly owned by the people.
The question, therefore, may no longer be whether Africa has an accountability debate. The challenge is whether the continent can turn that debate into systems, practices and cultures that ensure those who exercise power remain answerable to the people they serve.
