President Buhari embarrassed by Cameron's 'fantastically corrupt' statement

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is “embarrassed” by British Prime Minister David Cameron saying the country is one of the most corrupt in the world, according to his spokesman.

Cameron made the comments on Tuesday while being filmed at a Buckingham Palace reception for Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday. Speaking ahead of an anti-corruption summit in London on Thursday—at which Buhari will speak—the prime minister told the Queen: “We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain.”

He went on to describe Nigeria and Afghanistan as “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world,” before Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby interjected to defend Buhari, saying that “this particular president is not actually corrupt.”

“The prime minister must be looking at an old snapshot of Nigeria,” said Buhari’s spokesman Garba Shehu on Tuesday. The spokesman added that “the eyes of the world” were watching Buhari’s anti-corruption drive in Nigeria and that “things are changing with corruption and everything else” in the West African country.

The Nigerian president—who was elected on an anti-corruption ticket in March 2015—has himself lamented the country’s association with corruption and crime. Buhari told The Daily Telegraph in February that Nigerians’ reputation for criminality, especially drug and human trafficking, meant that Europe and the U.S. were reluctant to receive Nigerian migrants.

Buhari has also vowed, however, to uproot corruption from the country. He has requested greater cooperation from the international community in returning Nigerian public funds stolen by officials and hidden abroad, including more than $300 million stored in Switzerland by the late Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha. The president has also ordered the arrest of a number of high-profile figures—including former national security advisor Sambo Dasuki—in connection with a $2 billion scandal in which state funds earmarked for procuring arms to fight Boko Haram were diverted elsewhere.

Nigeria was ranked 136th out of 168 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, the same position it held in 2014. In a December 2015 report, Transparency found that 75 percent of Nigerians felt that corruption in the country had risen in the previous 12 months.

Newsweek

Video - British PM David Cameron calls Nigeria 'fantastically' corrupt

David Cameron has been caught on camera describing Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically corrupt countries” on the eve of a major corruption conference in London.

The Prime Minister will be hosting delegates from the two countries later this week, and the incident as he spoke with the Queen at an event to mark her 90th birthday will be a source of acute embarrassment.

During the summit, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to deliver a keynote address entitled: "Why We Must Tackle Corruption Together".

Mr Cameron could be heard singling out the two states as “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world”, in footage on ITV News showing him chatting in a group including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Commons Speaker John Bercow.

The Prime Minister told the Queen: “We had a very successful cabinet meeting this morning to talk about our anti-corruption summit, we’ve got the Nigerians… actually we’ve got the leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain.

“Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.”

The Archbishop - The Most Rev Justin Welby - is heard to intervene to make clear that "this particular president" is not himself corrupt.

It is not the first time a controversial comment has been overheard in a conversation involving Mr Cameron and the Queen.

In the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, the Prime Minister was heard saying the Queen “purred down the line” when he informed her of the result.

A spokesperson for Downing Street declined to comment directly on Tuesday's conversation, but did point out that the leaders of both Nigeria and Afghanistan have themselves spoken about the scale of their corruption problems.

Afghanistan's Ashraf Ghani and Nigeria's Mr Buhari have written essays for a book accompanying the summit.

Mr Ghani, Number 10 said, acknowledges in his piece that Afghanistan is “one of the most corrupt countries on earth” and Mr Buhari that corruption became a “way of life” in his country under “supposedly accountable democratic governments”.

Anti-corruption movement Transparency International ranked Afghanistan as 166th and Nigeria 136th out of 168 countries and territories in its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2015.

Independent

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Shell evacuates workers from oil field in Nigeria

Shell workers at Nigeria's Bonga oil field in the southern Niger Delta are being evacuated following a militant threat, a labor union official said on Monday as the vice president met oil majors to discuss a surge in violence.

Last week, militants attacked a Chevron facility in the impoverished Delta where tensions have been building up since authorities issued an arrest warrant in January for a former militant leader on corruption charges.

Shell has been evacuating workers from Bonga, a union official said as local media reported an unconfirmed militant attack in the area.

"The evacuation is being done in categories of workers and cadres," Cogent Ojobor, chairman of the Warri branch of the Nupeng oil labor union, said. "My members are yet to be evacuated."

He gave no numbers.

A Shell spokesman said earlier that oil output was continuing at its oil fields in Nigeria while it was monitoring the security situation.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in the evening in the capital Abuja met executives from Shell, France's Total, and Italy's Agip and Chevron. All declined to talk to Reuters.

"All of us as stakeholders are concerned and we have agreed to work together to ensure that production is not disrupted," said Henry Dickson, governor of the oil-producing Bayelsa state in the Delta, who took part in the meeting.

"This is a time that we cannot afford to have any disruption, not to talk of vandalism of critical national assets," he said.

In separate violence, gunmen killed four policemen traveling to Bayelsa's capital Yenagoa, police said.

A group known as the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for the Chevron attack. The same group has said it carried out an attack on a Shell oil pipeline in February which shut down the 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados export terminal.

Residents in the Delta have been demanding a greater share of oil revenues. Crude oil sales account for around 70 percent of national income in Nigeria but there has not been much development in the region.

President Muhammadu Buhari has extended a multimillion-dollar amnesty signed with militants in 2009 but upset them by ending generous pipeline protection contracts.

The militancy is a further challenge for a government faced with an insurgency by the Islamist militant Boko Haram group in the northeast and violent clashes between armed nomadic herdsmen and locals over land use in various parts of the country.

Reuters

Nigeria orders investigation in misappropriation of Global Fund grants

The Nigerian government has directed the country’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to launch full investigation into the alleged misappropriation of Global Fund Grants Nigeria received from 2010 to 2014.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, said, “President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR gave the directive as part of government’s effort and commitment to fight corruption in the country. The President has also directed the Secretary to the Government of Federation to review earlier audit reports from the Office of Inspector General (OIG)”.

Consequently, the Secretary to the Federal Government has set-up two investigative panels to look into the affected programmes and the financial transactions.

The first panel, headed by Mr. Adewole, will conduct in-depth review of all programmes while the second panel, chaired by Auditor General of the Federation – Mr Samuel Ukura, will review all financial transactions during the period.

The two committees are expected to submit their reports within four weeks.

“Mr President assured members of the international community that all funds received by Nigeria would be well utilised and accounted for under his watch to avoid national embarrassment,” Mr. Adewole said.

He further said all indicted officials would be given fair hearing and those found guilty would be sanctioned to serve as deterrent to others

On May 3, Global Funds announced that its Inspector General (OIG) audit of grants in Nigeria identified significant problems in procurement, supply chain, financial and program management.

The announcement said, “The auditors found discrepancies of over US$4 million between drugs ordered and delivered; US$20 million paid to suppliers without confirmation of delivery; stock-outs of eight months for critical medicines; and a total of US$7.65 million in unsupported expenditures. The Global Fund is reviewing corrective measures, particularly with regard to risk management, identified by the OIG as the root cause of many of the issues.

“With more than US$1.4 billion invested since 2003, Nigeria represents the Global Fund’s largest portfolio. Programs to date have contributed to 750,000 people living with HIV/AIDS currently on antiretroviral therapy, 310,000 new smear-positive tuberculosis cases detected and treated and 93.4 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets distributed to prevent the spread of malaria.

“Regarding procurement, the OIG found that Principal Recipients, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS and the National Malaria Elimination Program do not monitor the deliveries to the central medical store in Lagos of drugs arriving through the Global Fund’s Pooled Procurement Mechanism (a system that allows the Global Fund to bulk order health commodities at favorable prices).

“This resulted in discrepancies in antiretroviral drugs deliveries of US$3.7 million from 2013 to September 2015 and US$0.5 million in artemisinin-based combination therapy drugs. The OIG also identified payments amounting to US$20 million made to a procurement agent without confirmation of services rendered or goods delivered.

“The auditors found major weaknesses in supply chain management including ineffective controls over inventory management and distribution directly affecting service delivery to patients in Nigeria. Stock-outs lasting 8 months of critical medicines such as antiretroviral drugs and artemisinin-based combination therapies were found in 42 health facilities visited by the OIG. In addition, HIV commodities worth US$5.4 million had expired in the last two years.

“Although the OIG noted minor improvements since the introduction of a fiduciary agent in May 2015, financial management controls were found to be inadequate and ineffective. For example, the auditors identified a total of US$7.65 million of unsupported expenses linked to human resources, payment approval processes and advances management.

“Significant weaknesses exist in the internal controls around data collection and reporting processes. This resulted in more than 10% of errors between the data recorded at the facility level and data reported to the state coordinator and the Global Fund. The issues identified were mainly for the HIV and malaria programs. Good practice, however, was observed on data recorded for the tuberculosis programs.

“The OIG concluded that the Global Fund’s risk management framework in Nigeria is ineffective. The organization is unable to identify, mitigate and monitor the risks effectively. This explains many of the problems identified by the OIG audit. For example, although the Secretariat introduced the Pooled Procurement Mechanism to the Nigeria portfolio, limited preventative controls are in place to ensure that drugs procured through the mechanism are actually delivered and then distributed.

“The Secretariat is currently reviewing a number of corrective actions including assessing potential recoverable funds, internal control deficiencies and the grant recipients’ ability to deliver key Global Fund objectives in Nigeria.”

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