President Muhammadu Buhari says he is not demanding “any apology from anybody” after UK Prime Minister David Cameron described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt”.
Speaking at a pre -summit keynote address in London, President Buhari said he was more interested in the return of stolen assets held in British banks. In his words:
Am not going to demand any apology. All I’ll demand is return of assets. What would I do with apology? I need something tangible.” I call for establishment of an anti-corruption infrastructure that will trace and return stolen assets to their countries of origin.”Unfortunately, repatriating stolen assets is tedious, time consuming, costly. It entails more than just signing of bilateral agreements”
As huhuonline.com published previously, Mr. Cameron made the unguarded but truthful gaffe in a conversation with the Queen of England.
But his Special Assistant on media, Shehu Garba in his reaction, faulted the British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron, over his deriding comment on Nigeria.
In his words;“It is certainly not reflective of 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. That, we believe is the reason they chose him as a keynote speaker at the pre-summit conference.
“Thank you to the Archbishop. We very much cherish the good relationship between our two countries and nothing should stand in the way of improving those relations,” the presidency said.
