LAGOS MAY 11TH (URHOBOTODAY)-Managing Director of Transparency International Cobus de Swardt has condemned British Minister, David Cameron’s statement describing Nigeria as “Frantically Corrupt”.
He said, “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.”
It would be recalled that David Cameron has described Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically
corrupt” in a conversation with the Queen, reports BBC. The PM was talking
about this week’s anti-corruption summit in London.
“We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to
Britain… Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world,” Mr Cameron said.
Asked whether the PM knew he was being filmed, Number 10 said: “There were multiple cameras in the room.”
After Mr Cameron’s comments, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby intervened to say: “But this particular president is not corrupt… he’s trying very hard,” before Speaker John Bercow said: “They are coming at their own expense, one assumes?”
The conversation took place at Buckingham Palace at an event to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday. BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale described the PM’s comments as a “truthful gaffe”, because the two countries involved were widely perceived as having a corruption problem.
Afghanistan was ranked at 167, ahead of only Somalia and North Korea, in Transparency International’s 2015 corruption perception index. Nigeria was at 136.
With his remark, the archbishop was believed to have been referring to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who won elections last year promising to fight widespread corruption.