This issue of the Journal of Anti-Corruption Law presents interesting scholarly articles that offer a rigorous and multidimensional interrogation of corruption, accountability and institutional integrity across African governance systems.

Walyemera examines Uganda’s anti-corruption architecture, exposing how the proliferation of formal and informal enforcement bodies reflects a deficit of political will and often produces institutional duplication, conflicting mandates and weakened enforcement. He argues for institutional rationalisation and the strategic use of emerging technologies to enhance accountability and efficiency. Mubangizi adopts a human rights lens to analyse the corrosive relationship between corruption and sustainable development in Africa. Drawing on comparative case studies, he demonstrates how systemic corruption undermines socio-economic rights and obstructs the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals, advancing a compelling case for a human rights–based anti-corruption framework.

Musavengana interrogates corruption within child-sensitive social protection systems, conceptualising it as structural violence against children. His analysis advances a transformative, rights-based approach aimed at dismantling entrenched patterns of exclusion and intergenerational disadvantage.  Sope explores emergency procurement during the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa and Nigeria, revealing how urgency and weakened controls intensified corruption risks, and proposes resilience-oriented procurement reforms to strengthen future crisis responses. 

This issue of the Journal of Anti-Corruption Law brings together five scholarly articles and a keynote address that collectively interrogate the structural, institutional and normative failures sustaining corruption across African governance systems.

Zongwe exposes a profound regulatory lacuna in Namibia’s public procurement framework, demonstrating how the permissibility of civil servants bidding for state contracts institutionalises conflicts of interest and distorts market competition, with the Fishrot scandal serving as a cautionary illustration of systemic capture and consumer harm.  Assim and Adeyemo turn to Nigeria, analysing the phenomenon of autocratic legalism and the instrumentalisation of anti-corruption agencies as tools of selective prosecution and political repression, thereby hollowing out constitutional guarantees of accountability.

Birch and Karsten focus on South Africa’s local government sector, identifying fragmented statutory mandates and institutional fault lines that undermine coherent investigations into municipal corruption, and proposing a coordinated, multi-agency enforcement model. Van Coller and Ndlovu document the systematic erosion of prosecutorial independence in South Africa, tracing how political interference within the National Prosecuting Authority and law-enforcement agencies perpetuates impunity for politically connected actors. 

Salau interrogates Nigeria’s defence sector, demonstrating how arms-procurement exemptions and weak oversight produce a legal cul-de-sac for prosecuting large-scale procurement fraud and money-laundering offences. The issue concludes with a keynote address by Abodo, which grounds these doctrinal critiques in prosecutorial practice by mapping the growing threat of illicit financial flows in Uganda and the institutional responses required to confront them.