David Cameron has described Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically
corrupt” in a conversation with the Queen, reports BBC. The PM was talking
about this week’s anti-corruption summit in London.
“We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to
Britain… Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries
in the world,” Mr Cameron said.
Asked whether the PM knew he was being filmed, Number 10 said: “There were
multiple cameras in the room.”
After Mr Cameron’s comments, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
intervened to say: “But this particular president is not corrupt… he’s
trying very hard,” before Speaker John Bercow said: “They are coming at
their own expense, one assumes?”
The conversation took place at Buckingham Palace at an event to mark the
Queen’s 90th birthday. BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale
described the PM’s comments as a “truthful gaffe”, because the two
countries involved were widely perceived as having a corruption problem.
Afghanistan was ranked at 167, ahead of only Somalia and North Korea, in
Transparency International’s 2015 corruption perception index. Nigeria was
at 136.
With his remark, the archbishop was believed to have been referring to
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who won elections last year
promising to fight widespread corruption.