President Buhari: speaks with Telegraph of London

President Muhammadu Buhari, on a short break in the United Kingdom  said one of the biggest corruption suspects wanted by his government, resides in the United Kingdom.

He did not reveal the identity of the suspect, in the interview published by the UK Telegraph  today.

“One of the biggest suspects is in Britain now, although I am not going to name that person. But Britain has earned our respect in the way it deals with these matters. Our only problem is that it seems to be too thorough and it takes too much time. If there are obvious cases, like bank accounts, infrastructure houses and hotels, I would hope they could do it quicker, so that we can claim these things back promptly.”

Attention of observers may however be focused on former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke or  oil businessman Kola Aluko. The latter has been linked with several oil deals, in which Nigeria emerged short-changed. Madueke on her part is already under investigation by UK Fraud office, over suspicious money laundering.

President Buhari was also asked by his interviewer, Colin Freeman, the chief foreign correspondent of the newspaper about Nigerians  coming to Britain  to seek political asylum.

“Some Nigerians claim is that life is too difficult back home, but then again some Nigerians have also made it difficult for Europeans and Americans to accept them because of the number of Nigerians in different prisons all over the world accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking. I don’t think Nigerians have anybody to blame. They can remain at home. Their services are required to rebuild the country. If their countrymen misbehaved, the best thing for them is to stay at home and encourage the credibility of the nation,” Buhari replied.

He also said his government has been trying to deal with Nigeria’s image abroad.

“But we are on our way to salvage that. We will encourage our countrymen to stay at home, work hard and make a respectable living at home.”