[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he footage, below, was published by the British television station, ITV news.
CNN asked if it is a faux pas? No, it is not it is deliberate. Watch the big smiles on their faces and more than 24 hours after the UK’s prime minister, David Cameron’s release, no one in England has apologized to anyone even after the Nigerian president said it was “embarrassing”.
The more embarrassing remarks are indicated hereunder.
Why was it difficult for the archbishop of Canterbury to mention President Muhammadu Buhari by name? Not even by any of his initials when he purportedly retorted? Not even by country such as: “The president of Nigeria is actually not corrupt” Or “Buhari is actually not corrupt”. It is when people have no respect for and and or trust a leader, resort to such mode of address. The cleric was distancing himself from Buhari. They all were. The queen, the prime minister, archbishop of Canterbury… all of them. Hence, Archbishop of Canterbury left room for permutations and guess work. They rubbed it in when the British PM, Cameron further remarked:
“Everything has to be in the open”.
Mr. President Buhari, please worry less about the remarks of the British prime minister on Nigeria being “fantastically corrupt”… obviously under you. Because come to think of it you were the president of Nigeria when this summit for tomorrow was planned and you got invited.
Worry more about the prime minister’s closing remarks in that video clip, “Everything has to be in the open”. It means you are quite low on transparency and accountability scores.
UK Independent provided a transcript and The Trent published it HERE.
Prime Minister David Cameron and others are aware you set a standard for failure when you failed to run an open and transparent regime:
Particulars of failure:
- Failure to publish your assets to the World as pledged
- Failure to disclose/publish sums you said you recovered
- Failure to pay monies from TSA into the Federation account.
- Failure to unify the exchange rate – marks of corruption!!!!!
- In all countries where we fight corruption, the economy improves the standard of living improves. Not so with PMB.
- Failure to treat citizens applying the cherished principle of equality before the law, you apply one law to PDP goons and another law to All Progressives Congress (APC’s) whereas the political parties got campaign funds from similar sources, as you well know.
- Failure to keep your eyes off Niger Delta Oil – You resort to killing the people of the region to get their oil. Tell me the day you start exploration of oil in the Chad basin, you ill rush to amend s162, 1999 Constitution to give ‘North producer’ 55% derivation formula as against 13% to N-Delta.
- Killing people any how because they are minority Shiites
- Killing people because they are hated – Agatu, Enugu etc.
- Killing people because they want a separate state because of the failure to practice true federalism or a confederation.
British PM David Cameron quote from above published transcript:
“Because it’s an anti-corruption summit, everything has to be open. So there are no sort of closed-door sessions, it’s all in front of the press. It could be quite, umm, interesting. But there we go.”
Buhari’s anti-corruption fight faces the litmus test at the summit.
Carol Ajie is a human rights attorney. She can be reached by email HERE.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
