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1. Introduction
Globally, corruption has been identified as a major problem. Even though corruption is widespread, it varies in severity, types and consequences (Warf, 2017) with sub-Saharan Africa being the most corrupt (Transparency International, 2019). In Nigeria, corruption is endemic (Olawoyin, 2017). This is further reinforced by the Transparency International (2019) which recently ranked Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in the world despite the numerous anti-corruption efforts of the past and present administrations. To check the rise in corruption in the country, anti-corruption agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission were created in the year 2003 and 2000, respectively with little achievements to show. Since 1960 to date, Nigeria have lost over US$600bn to corrupt officials (Akinwale, 2019). The high incidences of corruption in Nigeria have been attributed to the many social and economic problems in the country such as kidnapping, unemployment, among others (Abu and Staniewski, 2019).
All over the world, corruption has enormous consequences on societies and economies (Warf, 2015a, 2015b). Depending on its magnitude, corruption may have detrimental effects on public finances as governments collect less tax in revenue and over pay for goods and services (Mauro et al., 2019). Corruption leads to a lack of public and foreign confidence in the government, and eventually undermines the credibility of the state. It also weakens the efficiency and effectiveness of government policies, and it may lead to the eventual collapse of the government (Warf, 2015a). Wide spread endemic corruption could increase the level of a country’s brain drain by acting as a push factor (Poprawe, 2015). These few among the numerous deleterious consequences of corruption have attracted researchers’ interest from various disciplines (Angeles and Neanidis, 2015; Justesen and Bjornskov, 2014; North et al., 2013; Kotera et al., 2012; Truex, 2011) to mention just a few. In Nigeria, several studies from other disciplines have equally examined the drivers of corruption especially at the micro-spatial levels (Fatile, 2012; Igiebor, 2019; Ogunlana, 2019; Ogbeidi, 2012).
Despite geographers’ interests in the state, governance and development, the study of corruption has received little attention in the discipline (Warf, 2015a, 2015b). Existing studies so far have examined the effects of environmental...