Presidency says ‎Cameron not referring to Nigeria under Buhari

The Presidency yesterday reacted to a statement credited to British Prime Minister David Cameron, describing Nigeria as one of the “Fantastically Corrupt” countries in the world.
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A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President (media) Garba Shehu in his reaction to the statement , said Cameron must have been referring to past administrations, being aware of the good work Buhari has been doing to fight corruption.‎

Cameron had in a conversation with the Queen, while talking about the upcoming anti-corruption summit in London, which President Buhari is already in London for, labeled Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically corrupt” in a conversation with the Queen.

The conversation took place at Buckingham Palace at an event to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.‎

He was quoted as saying, “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”.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has subsequently 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?”

In a reaction, Shehu said, “It is certainly not reflective of 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. That, we believe is the reason they chose him as a keynote speaker at the the pre-summit conference.

“Thank you to the Archbishop. We very much cherish the good relationship between our two countries and nothing should stand in the way of improving those relations”.

President Buhari is expected to deliver a keynote address today titled: “Why We Must Tackle Corruption Together” at a pre-summit conference of development partners, the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, Transparency International and other civil society groups.