Gender and corruption: Explaining women involvement in governance corruption in Nigeria

The paper examined the causes, impacts and implications of the involvement of women as decision makers in corruption scandals in the Nigeria's Fourth Republic. It made use of qualitative approach and adopted idealistic and realistic theories of gender and corruption as its theoretical framework. There has been a general contention in the anti-corruption literature that most men in power have the tendency to perpetrate corruption and engender bad governance in Nigeria. Hence, there was rising call for political power to shift base to women for accountability and transparency in governance. This is connected with the notion that women's involvement at a higher level in governance would lower corruption level. The findings indicated that women's involvement in corruption is also significant. The findings further reiterate the corruptibility offemale power holders and contradict the assumption of women being the “cleaner and fairer&x201D; sex in public governance.