David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Britain, has invited President Muhammadu Buhari to the London Summit taking place on Thursday, but he has been caught on camera calling Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically corrupt”.
Read the story by British Newspaper, The Independent
‘We’ve got the leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain’
By Adam Withnall @adamwithnall
David Cameron has been caught on camera during a conversation with the Queen, describing Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically corrupt” 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 singled out the two as “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world”, adding: “We’ve got the leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain.”
It comes as the latest controversial comment 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.
Footage on ITV News showed Mr Cameron on Tuesday afternoon chatting in a group including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Commons Speaker John Bercow. The incident where Mr Cameron could be overheard was shared on Twitter by ITV News deputy political editor Chris Ship.
A spokesperson for Downing Street declined to comment directly on the 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 Muhammadu Buhari have written essays for a book accompanying the summit.
Mr Ghani, they 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”.