President Muhammadu Buhari has dismissed British Prime Minister, David Cameron's remark that described Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically corrupt”.
Buhari, who departed for the United Kingdom yesterday to attend a global summit on anti-corruption, said the British PM’s unguarded remark was not reflective of his administration’s fight against corruption.
A statement by the president’s media aide, Mr. Garba Shehu, said:
“It is certainly not reflective of the good work that the president is doing. The eyes of the world are on what is happening here.
“The Prime Minister must be looking at an old snapshot of Nigeria. Things are changing with corruption and everything else.
“That, we believe is the reason they chose him as a keynote speaker at the pre-summit conference.”
Buhari, in the statement, also thanked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who tried to correct Cameron after his remark, saying:
“Thank you to the Archbishop. We very much cherish the good relationship between our two countries and nothing should stand in the way of improving those relations.”
Also coming out in Nigeria’s defence yesterday was Transparency International, the global anti-corruption watchdog, stating the country was making strong efforts in the fight against corruption.
Transparency International’s Managing Director, Mr. Cobus de Swardt, in his response to Cameron’s video, said the UK was actually the country that is “a big part of the world’s corruption problem”.
“There is no doubt that historically, Nigeria and Afghanistan have had very high levels of corruption, and that continues to this day.
“But the leaders of those countries have sent strong signals that they want things to change, and the London Anti-Corruption Summit creates an opportunity for all the countries present to sign up to a new era.
“This affects the UK as much as other countries: we should not forget that by providing a safe haven for corrupt assets, the UK and its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are a big part of the world’s corruption problem,” Mr. de Swardt said.
Nigeria currently ranks 136 of 168 countries and territories ranked in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for the year 2015
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