Apology? No thanks, we need our money back, says Buhari
British papers accuse PM of hypocrisy, president says oil firms are complicit in oil theft
British
Prime Minister David Cameron wednesday attempted to reverse his
unguarded remark about Nigeria and Afghanistan, two countries which on
Tuesday, he, described as “fantastically corrupt”, when he was briefing
Queen Elizabeth II on the ongoing anti-corruption summit being hosted by
the United Kingdom.
While briefing Members of Parliament (MP) in
the House of Commons wednesday, the British PM said Nigeria and
Afghanistan had taken “remarkable steps forward” on corruption, reported
the BBC.
The PM said the countries’ leaders were “battling hard” to tackle the problem.
His
attempt at a mea culpa came after Buhari, who arrived London on Tuesday
evening for the summit, said Cameron’s gaffe was not reflective of his
administration’s fight against corruption.
However, when asked
yesterday by journalists at the pre-anti-corruption conference in London
if Nigeria was “fantastically corrupt”, Buhari candidly replied, “Yes”,
adding that corruption in Nigeria was endemic, but his government was
committed to fighting it.
He went on to state that he was not
going to demand an apology from Britain or Cameron, making it abundantly
clear that he was more interested in the return of Nigeria’s assets
held in British banks.
“I am not going to be demanding any
apology from anybody. What I will be demanding is the return of assets. I
have already mentioned how Britain led and how disgraceful one of
Nigeria’s executives (former Bayelsa Governor, the late Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha) was. He had to dress like a woman to leave Britain and
left behind his bank account and fixed assets which Britain is not
prepared to hand over to us.
“This is what I am asking for. What will I do with an apology? I need something tangible,” he said.
Also
in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour wednesday, Buhari
refused to be defensive over Cameron’s statement, saying: “Well he said
what he knows about both countries. He did not say what he said to the
press, it was a private conversation.”
In its reaction, the
Afghan embassy in London said tackling corruption was one of President
Ashraf Ghani’s top priorities and “bold” action had been taken.
“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,” the embassy said.
According
to the BBC, Cameron was asked about his comments on Nigeria and
Afghanistan during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons,
where he jokingly checked if his microphone was working, refering to
“tips on diplomacy” and said he had made “many unforced errors” in the
past 24 hours.
Answering a question from Tory backbencher Philip
Davies, who asked why UK aid was being given to countries that the PM
sees as corrupt, in his reply, Cameron praised the action taken by
Afghanistan and Nigeria and warned that cutting off aid could “come back
to haunt us here”.
He also defended the action by his own
government, including initiatives on overseas tax havens and measures to
make sure “plundered money from African countries can’t be hidden in
London”.
In the footage showing Cameron’s comments on Tuesday,
the 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?”
Earlier, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the PM
had been “merely stating a fact” in his comments, and ex-London mayor
Boris Johnson said people would “find it refreshing he was speaking his
mind”.
Downing Street said the presidents of Nigeria and
Afghanistan had “acknowledged the scale of the corruption challenge they
face in their countries”.
But Labour MPs said a Tory government
“hosting an anti-corruption summit was like putting the fox in charge of
the chicken coop”.
“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,”
said Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott.
Similarly, British papers — The Guardian and Telegraph — accused Cameron, Britain and the west of hypocrisy.
“They
have spent decades ordering poor countries and failed states to sort
out their problems with dodgy money, even while taking much of that
dodgy money and ploughing it through their banks, their ritzy stores,
their estate agents, and their offshore tax havens,” The Guardian wrote
in its editorial wednesday.
In an Op-ed piece in the Telegraph
written by David Davis and Jo Cox, the authors said: “The Panama Papers
have shifted the focus of corruption far up the supply chain, to the
people who make corruption possible – and those people are often rather
closer to home.
“But careful readers of the Panama Papers will
notice an important fact that should have given Cameron pause for
thought before he made his comments to the Queen. More than half of the
companies named in law firm Mossack Fonseca files are incorporated in
Britain’s own tax havens. In fact, a full 50 per cent of the companies
are from the British Virgin Islands.
“The Prime Minister knows
this. Look at what he said just a few months ago: ‘Some of the British
Crown Dependences and Overseas Territories are making progress […].
Others, frankly, are not moving anywhere near fast enough. […] If we
want to break the business model of stealing money and hiding it in
places where it can’t be seen, transparency is the answer’.”
Transparency
International had also acknowledged that the UK’s record was mixed and
concrete action was needed on tax evasion and secrecy in the wake of the
Panama Papers’ disclosures, stopping tainted firms from bidding for
public contracts and protecting whistleblowers who expose corruption.
Asked
whether the PM knew his remarks to the Queen were being recorded,
Downing Street said: “The cameras are very close to him, there are
multiple cameras in the room.”
At a garden party later on Tuesday, the Queen herself was filmed on camera making comments about the Chinese government.
She
told a senior police officer that she had heard the Chinese had been
very rude to Britain’s ambassador to China during President Xi Jinping’s
state visit last year.
Meanwhile, Buhari, at a pre-summit forum
yesterday in London, gave his commitment to applying the rule of law and
to respecting human rights in the fight against corruption.
The
president, in a speech he made at a Commonwealth event titled, “Tackling
Corruption Together: A Conference for Civil Society, Business and
Government Leaders”, said he had also instructed security agencies to
respect human rights while carrying out their duties.
He said: “I
am not unaware of the challenges of fighting corruption in a manner
consistent with respect for human rights and the rule of law. As a
country that came out of prolonged military rule only 16 years ago, it
will clearly take time to change the mentality and psychology of law
enforcement officers.
“I am committed to applying the rule of law
and to respecting human rights. I also require our security agencies to
do the same.”
Ostensibly referring to the prolonged detention of
the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki, and the
leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, who had
both been granted bail by courts of competent jurisdictions, Buhari
however admitted that in a few cases “stringent rules” had been applied
as a result of threats to national security and the likelihood that
certain persons might escape from the country or seek to undermine the
stability of Nigeria.
The president consequently sought the
support of many countries for the prosecution of certain individuals
residing in their jurisdictions.
He said: “Of course, we will
provide the necessary legal documents and whatever mutual assistance is
required to secure the conviction of such individuals, as well as
facilitate the repatriation of our stolen assets.”
Buhari further
observed that he had since discovered that the repatriation of corrupt
proceeds was very tedious, time consuming, costly and entailed more than
just the signing of bilateral or multilateral agreements.
He
said: “This should not be the case as there are provisions in the
appropriate United Nations Convention that require countries to return
assets to countries from where it is proven that they were
illegitimately acquired.”
Buhari added that Nigeria was disposed to
forging strategic partnerships with governments, civil society
organisations, the organised private sector and international
organisations to combat corruption.
“Our sad national experience had
been that domestic perpetrators of corrupt practices often worked
hand-in-hand with international criminal cartels,” he said.
According to him, stolen public funds were often transferred abroad into secret accounts.
He
therefore called for the establishment of an international
anti-corruption infrastructure that will monitor, trace and facilitate
the return of such assets to their countries of origin.
He further stressed that the repatriation of identified stolen funds should be done without delay or preconditions.
Buhari
also told the gathering that apart from looting of public funds,
Nigeria was also confronted with illegal activities in the oil sector.
He
said: “That this industry has been enmeshed in corruption with the
participation of the staff of some of the oil companies is well
established. Their participation enabled oil theft to take place on a
massive scale.”
He cited a report released by Chatham House in London
in 2013, titled “Nigeria’s Criminal Crude: International Options to
Combat the Export of Stolen Oil”.
According to him, the findings of the Chatham House document were “illuminating and troubling”.
Part
of the Report, he told the gathering, concluded that: “a) Nigerian
crude oil is being stolen on an industrial scale and exported, with the
proceeds laundered through world financial centres by transnational
organised criminals.
“b) Oil theft is a specie of organised crime
that is almost totally off the international community’s radar, as
Nigeria’s trade and diplomatic partners have taken no real action.
“c) Nigeria cannot stop the trade single-handedly, and there is limited value in countries going it alone.”
Buhari
then said that the menace of oil theft in Nigeria, put at over 150,000
barrels per day, was a criminal enterprise involving internal and
external perpetrators.
“Illicit oil cargoes and their proceeds
move across international borders. Opaque and murky as these illegal
transactions may be, they are certainly traceable and can be acted upon,
if all governments show the required political will.
“This will
has been the missing link in the international efforts hitherto. Now in
London, we can turn a new page by creating a multi-state and
multi-stakeholder partnership to address this menace,” he said.
Buhari
also called on the international community to designate oil theft as an
international crime similar to the trade in “blood diamonds”, saying it
constituted an imminent and credible threat to the economy and
stability of oil-producing countries like Nigeria.
To stem the
tide, the president advocated an agreement on a rules-based architecture
to combat corruption in all its forms and manifestations.
He
said the anti-corruption crusade should be a shared agenda for civil
society, businesses and governments requiring commitment from companies,
creating a space for civil society and governments providing support
for whistle-blowers, adding that governments must demonstrate
unquestionable political will and commitment to the fight against
corruption.
According to him, “The private sector must come clean
and be transparent, and civil society, while keeping a watch on all
stakeholders, must act and report with a sense of responsibility and
objectivity.”
He said Nigeria was committed to signing the Open Government Partnership initiatives alongside Cameron during the summit today.
Cameron Praises Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption Fight
