David Cameron makes a U-turn praising Buhari's dramatic strides to fight corruption

BRITISH prime minister David Cameron has made a dramatic U-turn on his view regarding Nigeria describing the country as one that it taking dramatic strides to curb the menace of corruption.

 

Earlier this week, in a private conversation with the queen, Mt Cameron was overheard describing Nigeria and Afghanistan as two countries that were fantastically corrupt. His comments attracted widespread criticism, forcing President Muhammadu Buhari to wade into the matter saying he does not want an apology but would rather Britain return Nigeria's stolen wealth stashed on her shores.

 

In London for a global anti-corruption summit, President Buhari is the keynote speaker at the gathering, where he detailed the steps his government is taking to combat corruption. Seeking to limit the damage from his gaffe, Mr Cameron retraced his steps yesterday, saying that Nigeria and Afghanistan had taken remarkable steps forward on corruption.

 

Mr Cameron praised Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani too, saying that like President Buhari, he was taking bold steps to tackle corruption. A spokesman for the Afghan embassy in London added that tackling corruption was one of President Ghani’s top priorities and bold action had been taken.

 

He added: “We have made important progress in fighting systematic corruption in major national procurement contracts and are making progress on addressing institutional issues as well as issues related to impunity. Therefore calling Afghanistan in that way is unfair.”

 

Downing Street, however, said the presidents of Nigeria and Afghanistan had acknowledged the scale of the corruption challenge they face in their countries. However, Labour members of parliament said a Tory government hosting an anti-corruption summit was like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

 

Shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott, said: “The government is refusing to take meaningful action to close Britain’s constellation of tax havens, which together constitute the largest financial secrecy network in the world.”