- If Nigeria is ‘fantastically corrupt’, then Britain is fantastically adept at safe-keeping our ill-gotten wealth!
British Prime Minister David Cameron obviously said nothing new when he described Nigeria as ‘fantastically corrupt’. “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,” Cameron was caught on camera telling the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace at an event to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.
Everyone, including Nigerians themselves, know and admit that this country is corrupt. Or, where else in the world, except probably in Afghanistan, could corruption have been so palpable as in Nigeria, with all the revelations so far made in the ongoing $15billion arms fund scandal? Where else could someone who has not done any job for government got alert that millions had been dropped into his account? Where else could a military general have been so rich as to have between him and his wife and son billions of stolen public funds? Where else could the National Security Adviser (NSA) have been alleged to become an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), doling out billions of Naira to all manner of persons for things that have nothing to do with security, except in a country that is fantastically corrupt?
Coming from the prime minister of a country that is home to much of the world’s stolen wealth, Mr Cameron should know countries that are corrupt and those that are fantastically so!
But it was unfortunate that a prime minister who was due to host a major international anti-corruption summit only a few hours from the time he whispered into the Queen’s ear could have made such a statement. It would have been pardonable if Mr Cameron had acknowledged the efforts of the present Nigerian government in tackling corruption. Indeed, it reeks of bad faith not to acknowledge this fact, much more so that President Muhammadu Buhari was in the United Kingdom then to solicit Mr Cameron’s support in recovering some of Nigeria’s looted wealth stashed away in Britain.
We are however happy that Mr Cameron seemed to have acted on his own given the reactions of both the Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Scotland, who saw Mr Cameron’s remarks as ‘unfortunate’ adding that countries like Nigeria needed support rather than criticism; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who intervened that: “But this particular president is not corrupt… he’s trying very hard”.
We are equally delighted that President Buhari gave a prompt and appropriate response to Mr Cameron’s unfortunate statement: “I am not going to demand an apology from anybody. What I am demanding is a return of assets … This is what I am asking for. What would I do with an apology? I need something tangible”. What Nigeria needs badly now is the assets stashed away in the United Kingdom and Mr Cameron should do everything within his powers to have them returned to Nigeria.
Mr Cameron conveniently forgot that his country is a haven of a third of the stolen assets in the world. He is also oblivious of an adage that “the real thief is not the person who stole palm oil from the market but the person who took it from him”. The logic is simple: if Nigerian and other countries’ leaders who steal from their treasuries have no safe haven like Britain, they will think twice before stealing.
We rest our case with the befitting quote from the editorial of The Guardian of London on May 12: “When Mr Cameron was caught on camera on Tuesday boasting to the Queen of the “fantastically corrupt countries” turning up at Lancaster House this week, he might have mentioned that Afghanistan is a failed state that did not get any less failed over 13 years of British intervention. And he should certainly have mentioned that the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is coming to London to lobby it to sort out the tax havens in its own backyard”. Nothing could have been more consoling.
So, when next Mr Cameron is going to carpet any country for corruption, he should remember to remove the log in his own country’s eye before complaining about the speck in others’. Mr Cameron will do well to help us recover our stolen wealth put in his country by some of our political and other leaders
