The anti-corruption blow back in London

Barely 24 hours to the celebrated Anti-Corruption Summit in London, David Cameron, British prime minister, PM and convener of the event, in a moment of indiscretion, and in the presence of the Queen of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, verbalized his true evaluation of Nigeria, in the following damning words: “We have got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain- Nigeria and Afghanistan”, he whispers conspiratorially to his audience. He then intoned further, “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world”.
How could the British PM  lump Nigeria, which is rated 136 together with Afghanistan rated 166 -just one step ahead of Somalia, a joint last, with North Korea, on the list of Transparency International, (TI) corruption index?

So what David Cameron simply did,  was to interchange Somalia which is at the bottom of the list, with Nigeria, since Nigerian officials themselves, through glib talk, have been raking up muck and in the process rating their country worse than TI’s valuation.
Take former Delta State governor, James lbori, who has been serving a jail term in London for money laundering, for instance. At first they said he laundered fifty million pounds, £50m, of which it is being alleged that DFID, a British govt Dept in charge of foreign aid and grants has agreed to share the £50m when recovered, 50/50 with Nigerian govt.
Under heavier scrutiny, the whole process and charges are falling apart as British detectives and judicial officers are being found to have had their ‘fingers in the cookie jar’. With a policy where 40% of recovered funds are retained in Britain, only a paltry portion of the funds recovered in Britain from former governor of Bayelsa state, Deprieye  Alamiesegha,  now late, was repatriated.
I had in my last article titled ‘Analyzing The Buhari Appeal’ published on the back page of Thisday newspaper and other online platforms on the eve of the London Anti Corruption Summit, where I mentioned that his hosts cared less about whether president Buhari was loved at home or not, but he was only invited to satisfy the selfish interests of David Cameron, who is fighting to ‘wash off’ the corruption smear that the scandalous Panama papers conferred on him.
It may be recalled that during a debate on the infamous Panama papers in British parliament, a member, Dennis Skinner, was so enraged that David Cameron has been benefiting from the nefarious activities that go on in such tax havens that, he tagged the PM “Dodgy Dave” which is awful and warranted the suspension of Mr Skinner, when he rejected a directive by the leader of parliament to withdraw the unsavory slur that he put on the PM.
There are major fallouts from the unfortunate David Cameroon Freudian slip and there are three clear lessons-reinforced by African and conventional wisdom-to be learnt from the negative image of Nigeria being dished into publish space by Nigerian politicians playing to the gallery.
(1) Do not Wash Your Dirty Linen In Public (2) Do Not Run Down Your Country to Gain International Accolades (3) Do not Throw A Stone Into The Market, It Might Land On  Your Mother And Hurt Her.
Arising from the careless and often unsubstantiated utterances about horrendous levels of corruption by top Nigerian govt officials-which are obviously exaggerated, many a business partnership and transactions might have been lost internationally.
I can imagine how, a British businessman would warmly shake the hands of a potential Nigerian business partner, signalling the closing of a deal. After the departure of the Nigerian, he would tell his lawyer and accountant, “check that Nigerian guy out with a magnifying glass. Their govt said they are fantastically corrupt. We can’t afford to take any chances”.
A similar gaffe to the one about Nigeria and Afghanistan also occurred in London, when the Queen was caught on video discussing an incident that occurred during a recent visit by the Chinese premier to England. The queen’s confidential chat with a female British police commander, which was considered a snide talk and undiplomatic, has triggered a sort of row between China and the U.K, albeit on a mild level, as the Chinese govt has taken exception to the apparent breach of protocol, and put out a statement affirming her position that the Chinese visit had positive outcome.
Nigeria’s presidency too, has quickly reacted to the negative labelling with the following statement, “It is certainly not reflective of the good work 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”.
Subsequently, president Buhari, himself, also responded to the diplomatic faux pax in an interview with CNN’s Christian Amanpour, where he absolved the British PM of any wrong doing.
The scenario above and Cameron’s involvement in the Panama papers imply that people from all nations of the world are not perfect and leaders of nations only put forward their best foot and not advertise their bad sides.
I can imagine, how infuriated, PM David Cameron would be if, before the Anti Corruption Summit commenced, President Buhari was caught on camera discussing with Abubakar Malami, minister of justice in his entourage, how willy, the British were, when under the guise of military expedition in 1897 to avenge the killing of British soldiers(spies) killed in Bini kingdom under Oba  ovaramen’ swatch , attacked the historic palace and carted away precious artifacts such as the resplendent queen Idia bronze head.
Of course, such side talk won’t happen because president Buhari and indeed Nigerians are not treacherous or petulant enough to insult their hosts in that manner.
Without further ado, let me conclude by emphasizing that Nigerians don’t need a rocket scientist to enlighten them that some matters are better settled in the bedroom than on the streets.

Magnus Onyibe