In Nigeria’s country statement to the anti-corruption summit hosted by the British Prime Minister David Cameron, Buhari said that the federal government would apply the OCDS to major projects in the oil, transportation, power, health, education and other sectors.
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“Soon countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Afghanistan will be more transparent than UK-controlled tax havens”. “It is a contributor to terrorism in many different ways and the extremism that we see in the world today comes to no small degree from the utter exasperation that people have with the sense that the system is rigged”, Kerry said.
Speaking on the $2.1 billion arms deal scam said that “those that were responsible (for procuring the arms) sat down as if they were going to have lunch or dinner, and shared (the money) and put it in their accounts”.
President Muhammadu Buhari also stated that all he wants from David Cameron, are the funds stashed in various British banks by corrupt Nigerian officials, and not an apology.
“We see this anger manifesting itself in different forms in elections around world, including ours”, he said, alluding to unexpected success of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders in USA presidential primaries.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the worldwide community must unite against corruption to choke off funds for extremism and promote the rule of law.
Plans were also unveiled to force foreign companies owning British property or bidding for government contracts to reveal their ultimate owners, as part of the new public register.
In drawing the summit to a close, Prime Minister Cameron praised the British Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories saying, “All of them have committed to having registers of beneficial ownership and crucially majority now have committed to the automatic exchange of information and automatically sharing those registers of beneficial ownership with other countries”.
The register, which London said would be the first of its kind in the world, will include companies that already own property in Britain, not just those companies wishing to buy.
Cameron also announced that the United Kingdom, along with 18 other countries, will establish global partnerships between institutions and professionals to change behaviours and promote integrity and professional standards.
Anti-corruption protesters who gathered close to the summit venue, some dressed as bankers with bowler hats reclining on deck chairs as they fanned themselves with banknotes, said what was needed was an outright abolition of tax havens.
But charities and opposition politicians said Britain must go farther and insist that the territories’ ownership registers are made public.
Premier Hon Alden McLaughlin and Minister of Financial Services Hon Wayne Panton both represented the Cayman Islands at the summit.
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In his opening remarks at the summit, Cameron applauded Buhari’s vigorous efforts to curb corruption in Nigeria.
