Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari
has defended David Cameron's comments ,
caught on video this week, about Nigeria being
"fantastically corrupt."
Buhari insisted that Cameron had nothing to
apologize for, as he was merely talking about
what he knows.
"I think he's being honest about it..." he told
CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "I don't think you
can fault him."
During a conversation with the Queen that was
captured on camera on Tuesday, Cameron
declared Nigeria and Afghanistan "possibly the
two most corrupt countries in the world."
The comment came as world leaders gathered
in London for an anti-corruption summit on
Thursday, which has been largely overshadowed
by Cameron's gaffe.
The social media backlash was swift and
Nigeria's presidential spokesman said they were
"embarrassing to us."
But President Buhari said he was more
concerned with fighting corruption than talking
about it. He said his administration was making
inroads with clearing a backlog of "ghost
workers" who are claiming salaries fraudulently
and by arresting those who embezzled
government funds during the previous
administration.
"Nigerians are now acutely aware that what we
were saying during our campaign (for president)
was no exaggeration," he said.
A 2015 report by Transparency International , an
independent anti-corruption group, scores
Nigeria the world's 136th most corrupt country,
out of 168. Afghanistan fares worse in the
survey, coming in at number 166.
Buhari told Amanpour that billions of dollars
designated to fight the country's major terrorist
group, Boko Haram, were shared among officials
who gathered "as if they were going to have
lunch and dinner and put the money into their
accounts."
One year into his presidency, Buhari is facing
multiple threats: a flagging economy due to
plunging oil prices; endemic corruption; and the
insurgency from Boko Haram, which has
kidnapped thousands of women and children,
most notably 216 schoolgirls from Chibok, in
northeast Nigeria. Most of them are still
missing.
Asked about a video -- exclusively obtained by
CNN last month -- that showed some of the
missing schoolgirls alive, President Buhari said
he had not seen the clip and insisted that he
would not have shown it to the families even if
he had seen it.
"How can we show it to them when we don't
know where they are?" he asked. "If we know
where they are then we can organize to secure
them. If they are divided into 5, 10 groups all
over the region, there's no way we can
spontaneously and simultaneously attack all
those locations. The important thing is to get
them alive," he said.
CNN reported last month that Boko Haram had
made ransom demands for their release.
However, the president said that his
administration is still trying to establish bonafide
Boko Haram leadership before entering into
talks with them.
"When we identify it, we are prepared to talk to
them. We can't just talk to whoever gets a video
clip," he said.
President Buhari added that he has met twice
with the families of the missing schoolgirls but
said he tries to limit his meetings with them for
his own "emotional balance."
"I try to imagine my 14-year-old daughter
missing for one to two years... a lot of parents
would rather see them in their graves than the
condition they are in now."
"It's tragic," he added.

Culled from : http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/11/europe/cameron-nigeria-corruption-buhari/index.html