The Nigerian government had on Wednesday responded to Mr Cameron’s statement, saying he must be referring the Nigeria’s past and that the statement did not represent the efforts of the Buhari-led administration in the fight against corruption.
Advertisement
Buhari, who was elected on a mandate to fight corruption and has been given star billing at the unusually constructed summit, said on Wednesday that he was not going to demand an apology from Cameron, but hit back at the slow pace with which western governments returned assets stolen by corrupt former government officials. On Tuesday, Cameron was caught on camera telling the Queen at a Buckingham Palace reception that both countries were “fantastically corrupt”.
The International Olympic Committee will be on the panel for Thursday’s session, which will form part of the prime minister’s global anti-corruption summit, to be attended by representatives from more than 50 countries. All I’ll demand is return of assets. “I need something tangible”. Banks, civil-society organisations and the International Monetary Fund are also attending the gathering, which aims to produce a global declaration against corruption and break what Cameron has called the “taboo about tackling this issue head-on”.
Some Nigerians interviewed on the matter in Abuja agreed that corruption was a major problem confronting the rapid development of the country and should be condemned.
The summit, the first of its kind, had been planned for months but was given new life after the furore about the Panama Papers leak, which revealed that world leaders and wealthy individuals from across the globe were using worldwide tax havens – including a number linked to Britain – to stash billions of dollars overseas. I don’t think the Prime Minister was wrong to say that corruption is a real issue for these countries.
More than 180 million ($260 million, 228 million euros) of property in Britain was investigated as suspected proceeds of corruption between 2004 and 2014, according to Transparency International, which says this figure is just the “tip of the iceberg”.
“We must act together with courage, ambition and urgency to put an end to this scourge [of corruption] and make our world a fairer place,”they said in a letter circulated by anti-poverty group ONE”.
Ahead of the conference Cameron called the corruption “the cancer at the heart of so many of our problems in the world today”.
Britain said France, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Afghanistan were pledging to launch similar ownership registers, and that more countries are due to follow suit.
“As well as agreeing a package of actions to combat the problem, the summit will deal with topics including corporate secrecy, government transparency, the enforcement of worldwide anti-corruption laws, and the strengthening of global institutions”, said a note on the United Kingdom government’s website.
The 29-minute video clip showed the president as answering “yes” to a question on whether Nigeria is fantastically corrupt.
Reporter: Are you embarrassed by what he (Cameron) said?
Advertisement
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.
