A new public survey released on Tuesday by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has rated the Nigeria Police as the most corrupt public institution in Nigeria.

The SERAP report titled “Nigeria: Corruption Perception Survey” listed high levels of corruption in public institutions in the country since 2015, with officials of the power sector closely following the Police.

The survey, which was carried out between September and December 2018 to assess the state of corruption in law enforcement and public service provision also covered the judiciary, education and health sectors.

“A bribe is paid in 54 percent of interactions with the police. In fact, there is a 63% probability that an average Nigerian would be asked to pay a bribe each time he or she interacted with the police.

“That is almost two out of three,” a statement issued by Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP Deputy Director on the report read.

Akin Oyebode, chairman of the panel which released the report, said the development of a people is almost “inversely proportional to the level of corruption”.

“Nigeria is looked upon as a giant of Africa. Yet Nigeria could not conduct free, fair and credible elections,” he said.

According to the report, for every 100 police interactions reported by the respondents, there was a bribe paid in 54 interactions. The prevalence levels stood at 37% in the power sector and 18% in education, 17.7% in the judiciary and 14% in the health sector.

It was gathered that 51% of the individuals who paid bribes to the police and 35 percent to the power sector believed this was the only way to access the services sought from the institutions.

The police and judiciary had the largest proportion of total bribes paid at 33 percent and 31 percent respectively. On the other hand, bribes paid for education, power and health services accounted for 19 percent, 10.9 and 5 percent respectively.

Significantly, the World Internal Police Security Index (WIPS) had in 2017 rated the Nigeria Police as the worst in the world.