RE: David Cameron calls Nigeria 'fantastically corrupt', We don't need any moral lesson from Britain

"The UK is currently home to tons of laundered funds from all over the world. David Cameron's statement is incomplete. If there is no receiver, there would be no giver of 'fantastically corrupt' funds. It takes two to tango."

Transparency International responds to Cameron comments regarding Nigeria, Afghanistan and UK Summit

Responding to the recent comments by David Cameron, Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of Transparency International 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.”

Also the Presidential Spokesperson Garba Shehu said the position and statement of the British PM as the situations and efforts of the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari in the fight against corruption are concerned is embarrasing.

"This is embarrassing to us, to us say the least, given 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."


Meanwhile, 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, attended by political leaders and other public figures.

At a garden party later on Tuesday, the Queen herself was caught on camera making unguarded comments about the Chinese government.

The Foundation of corruption in Nigeria were laid by British imperialists during the colonial era and the current spate of corruption in the country were been aided by the so called developed countries including Britian where the looters transfered the common resources of the people to.

It is NOT Cameron's fault : we take the wealth of Africa to oil their economies. Abacha stole dollars and pounds from our Central Bank and they readily took the money into their bank vaults. They knew that he was not an industrialist. They didn't ask him where the money came from but their banks took the money. They are thieves too if we go by the Yoruba wisdom (Eni gbe epo laja...)

Corruption in Nigeria is a British legacy, the British colonial masters forcefully merged hitherto independent and peacefully coexisting nations together in order to gain economic advantage. At independence they consciously handed over power to the most backward section of the Nigerian ruling elite to maintained our neo-colonial status.

We don't need any moral lesson from Britain and the US which inarguably are the most corrupt countries in the world. They kept the loot from our treasury in their bank vaults, gave the looters save haven to live and invest same in their economy to sustain it, they expose the filthy lucre to negotiate with successive criminal governments and gave conditions beneficial to their economy before the loots are returned piecemeal, if they are ever returned.

The same Britian, US and other western imperialist arm twisted the Jerry Rawlings government to take IMF loan in 1984/85 and found a willing tool in Ibrahim Babangida who took the IMF loan in 1986 with all its anti people conditionalities that destroyed the social, political and economic fabric of our national life. Are they not drumming it into the head of the Buhari administration now, that taking loan from their imperial controlled IMF is the only way out of our present economic doldrums?

Though, the Minister of Finance made a public statement that Nigeria will not collect IMF loan, one do not know for how long the government can hold on to this principle before it capitulates to the dictates of the Western powers. Particularly when the FG is tickering on the full deregulation of the downstream oil sector, a policy championed by IMF/World Bank/WTO.

The orchestrated campaigns of calumny by the Brutish press against the Buhari administration is to whip him to order, as his recent bilatera economic relationship with China and attendant consideration of Yuan for external reserve is unhealthy for their economic interests. One should not be taken in that Donald Cameron and a probable president of the US, Hillary Clinton are speaking in discordant tune, they are both working towards a strategic goal to keep Nigeria perpetually as a neo-colonial state.

The antics of Britain , US and their Western allies are too well known to us, they criminalised leaders in Africa and other parts of the world that they cannot easily compromised and manipulate; they labelled Mugabe a thief & dictator and their errand boys kill Gadaffi for sit-tightism yet they are best of friends to Paul Biya.

The collapse of Nigeria will be more beneficial to Western powers than to the people of the small nations that may emerge from its carcass. Rather than fan the embers of hatred and disunity, we should collectively work towards a national rebirth. The Buhari adminstration should be seen as a stop gap for all genuine progressives and revolutionary forces to align and wrestle power from the present forces of darkness and retrogression parading themselves as leaders.