President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has said he does not want an apology from David Cameron for calling his country fantastically corrupt, but a return of the assets taken out of his country and sent to the UK.
Speaking at a Commonwealth anti-corruption conference, he said: “What would I do with an apology? I need something tangible. I am not going to demand any apology from anyone. What I am demanding is a return of assets.”
Asked at the event if Nigeria was a fantastically corrupt country, he thought for a moment and said “Yes”.
He refused, however, to say whether he regarded Cameron’s remarks as rude, saying that Britain had led in trying to track down former Nigerian government members who had acted disgracefully.
He called for a multi-state and multi-stakeholder agency to combat what he described as the hydra-headed menace of corruption. He announced that Nigeria would be joining the Open Government Data partnership, an international body designed to make the activities of government more transparent, including over public procurement.
The British Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock, speaking at the same event, said he agreed with Buhari, adding his government had been behind the curve on the issue of corruption, but was now focused on ideas such as a public beneficial ownership register.
He refused to say if the government was embarrassed by Cameron’s characterisation of Nigeria, saying it was concentrating on getting results at its major anti-corruption conference on Thursday.
Defending the UK government’s actions over its overseas territories, he said: “We are prepared to stick our neck out and act alone, but what we need is the whole world to move together.” He said if one jurisdiction made a change, there was a danger that illegal transactions could go to a different jurisdiction.
Britain has decided not to invite some UK overseas territories such as the British Virgin Islands in protest at its refusal to do more to help with the exchange of tax information.
Buhari said his country had lost billions through stolen oil and leading politicians stealing money from Nigeria. The country was facing disaster due to the falling oil price and officials taking oil blocks through third parties. He called for Lloyd’s to do more to trace ships loaded with crude oil and for greater transparency in commodity trading.
Pointing out both BP and Shell had been there at the start of the Nigerian oil industry, he said many of these companies knew key players in the industry, and could help fight corruption.
He also expressed frustration that he had to follow a tolerant legal system that presumed someone was innocent until proven guilty even when they were riding around in Rolls-Royces. “Mercifully,” he added, “documentation is helping us to trace billions of dollars.”
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Any country that thought it was safe from the international cartels of corruption, he said “needed to wake up”. He said: “We need an international anti-corruption infrastructure that can monitor trace and facilitate the return of assets to the countries of origin. The repatriation of proven stolen assets should be done without delay or precondition.”
He praised the UK law enforcement agencies for arresting former Nigerian governors, including some who dressed as women to get out of the UK.
He said it was well established that Nigerian oil assets were being stolen on an industrial scale, often being sent through financial centres such as London. He said: “With the collapse of the oil price we need every cent we can get now just to pay salaries, if not for anything else.” He added that oil theft involving international and domestic perpetrators needed to be seen as a crime on a similar level as the stealing of blood diamonds.
He said the oil was certainly traceable if the international community showed the required political will to end criminal trading. He said: “This will has been the missing link in the international effort. Now in London we can turn a new page by building a multi-state multi-stakeholder partnership to address this menace.”
Oil theft, he said, was an imminent and credible threat to oil-producing countries such as Nigeria.
The Commonwealth secretary general, Patricia Scotland, lauded Buhari’s efforts to end corruption in Nigeria since he became president last year.
Lady Scotland told BBC Breakfast: “The corruption is there … I don’t think the prime minister was wrong to say that corruption is a real issue for these countries.
“But the problem … the question is, what are we going to do about it and what is the president [Buhari] doing about it and are we globally willing to help him?”
Asked whether Cameron should apologise, the former mayor of London Boris Johnson told BBC Breakfast: “I think the prime minister, as far as I understand it, was speaking very candidly about the problems of global corruption.
“I think most people will find it refreshing he was speaking his mind. The more people who speak their minds the better, in my view.”
Buhari said he would be establishing a register of beneficial ownership as well as signing the Open Government Data partnership.