President Muhammadu Buhari who is
currently in London has said he does not need any
apology from the United Kingdom, but a return of all
its stolen assets stashed away in Britain and its
Crown territories.
Buhari said this in London at the Tackling Corruption
Together Conference ahead of the International Anti-
Corruption Summit to be hosted on Thursday by the
British Prime Minister, David Cameron.
The president said this in less than 24 hours after
the publication of a video which shows Cameron
describing Nigeria and Afghanistan as the two most
corrupt countries in the world.
In his words, “All I will demand is return of assets.
What would I do with apology? I need something
tangible. Unfortunately, repatriating stolen assets is
tedious, time-consuming, costly. It entails more
than just signing of bilateral agreements.”
Garba Shehu, Nigeria’s presidential spokesman, in
an earlier response to Cameron’s comments said
the country was embarrassed by the comments and
noted that it did not reflect present realities.
Shehu in a message he shared on social media said,
“This is embarrassing to us, to us say the least,
given the good work that 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. Things are changing with
corruption and everything else”.
However, President Buhari has insisted that Nigeria
is ready to partner with the UK in order to combat
corruption while hoping that the two countries would
be able to agree on rules-based architecture to
combat corruption at the end of the Summit on
Thursday.
He said: “I call for establishment of an anti-
corruption infrastructure that will trace and return
stolen assets to their countries of origin. Corruption
does not differentiate between developed and
developing countries. It is serious threat to good
governance, peace and security”.
He also re-emphasised that his government’s zero
tolerance for corruption is standing and would fight
the ‘monster’, “even if many feathers would be
ruffled.”
africanspotlight.com/2016/05/11/nigeria-doesnt-need-camerons-apology-just-return-our-stolen-assets-buhari-tells-uk/