BRITISH newspaper Mail Online has cast aspersions over President Muhammadu Buhari's claim to having a squeaky clean image pointing out that his family is very wealthy and his children attend expensive English schools.
Since assuming office in May last year, President Buhari has made the fight against corruption the centrepiece of his presidency, getting anti-graft agencies to investigate the previous government. Later this week, President Buhari will deliver a keynote speech at an international anti-corruption summit in London being hosted by British prime minister David Cameron and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
However Mail Online has ridiculed President Buhari's claims to be whiter than white, pointing out that he sends his daughter to a £26,000-a-year English school. Today, the paper also published a story indicating that that in April, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party unearthed a ticket stub showing Hanan Buhari, 16, had flown first-class from London to Nigeria,
According to the paper, the self-proclaimed people’s President Buhari, may be waging a war against corruption but his critics have described as a witch hunt. It wrote that President Buhari's daughter flew first class to Britain despite her father placing a ban on officials using premium travel.
Furthermore, the report added That President Buhari had spent £150,000 on educating his daughter Zahra, a Surrey University student. In addition, the paper also questioned President Buhari’s failure to give a full account of his worth and pointed out his partial admission of more than £1m in the bank, five houses and two plots of land.
“The presence of Nigeria’s president at David Cameron’s anti-corruption summit this week may surprise many in his nation, which receives vast amounts of UK aid. Self-proclaimed people’s President Muhammadu Buhari began a war on corruption after taking power last year but critics allege it is a political witch-hunt.
“Nigeria has the highest-paid government officials in the world but is one of the largest beneficiaries of UK foreign aid. The president of its senate, Bukola Saraki, is due to face trial on corruption charges after it emerged he has a £6m London property in his wife’s name," The Mail Online added.
Britain's government gives Nigeria a paltry sum of nearly £250m a year in foreign aid, dwarfing the huge sums British companies like BA and Shell make from Nigeria. President Buhari's supporters say 49 arrests of members of the previous regime show the anti-corruption war is genuine but his opponents say it is politically driven.
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