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		</div><p>Came across this interesting headline in the UK based newspaper, <em>The Daily Mail</em></p>
<h2><strong>&#8216;Is Nigerian leader&#8217;s pal &#8216;fantastically corrupt&#8217;? Friend of African president accused of stealing £500million&#8217;</strong></h2>
<p id="ext-gen36" class="mol-para-with-font">According to mail &#8211; &#8220;Rotimi Amaechi, who travelled with the [Nigerian] president Muhammadu Buhari to attend an <span id="ext-gen142">anti-corruption </span>summit in the UK, is Nigeria’s transport minister and is said to have bankrolled Buhari’s presidential campaign.<br />
In the Nigerian press he has been dubbed ‘ATM’ – the American term for cash machine – because of his ability to produce vast sums of money at short notice. He remains in his post despite being accused of misappropriating £338million by a commission investigating the sale of state assets.&#8221;</p>
<p class="mol-para-with-font"><span id="ext-gen37">The article goes on further to speculate in line with summit host <a href="https://konniemoments.com/2016/05/11/david-cameron-calls-afghanistan-nigeria-fantastically-corrupt-muhamadu-buhari-nigeria-president-no-apologies-just-return-nigerias-stolen-assets-in-british-banks/">Davaid Cameron&#8217;s gaffe</a> about his &#8216;fantastically corrupt&#8217; guests<br />
&#8220;Some of that money is likely to have come from UK taxpayers, who gave the country £1billion in aid over five years to 2014, including £248million in 2014 alone. </span>Separately, Amaechi is accused of diverting £140million of state funds into Buhari’s presidential campaign, with reports he paid for media, consultants and private jets.&#8221;</p>
<h6><strong><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23203" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/image-12.jpeg" alt="image-12" width="680" height="432" />The Global leaders at the anti-corruption summit: British PM David Cameron (left) and Nigeria president, Muhammadu Buhari (right)</strong></h6>
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This is a good speculative story but factually inaccurate and even more condescendingly speculative in concluding the source of the misappropriated funds.<br />
Rotimi Amechi has been accused of corruption while serving as the governor of one of Nigeria&#8217;s richest oil producing states. All indications point to this ex-governor having a case to answer. However is the looted funds from the state coffers of Nigeria, one of the leading oil producers or the &#8216;handouts&#8217; to Nigeria from pockets of the British taxpayer? To claim that:<br />
<em>&#8216;Some of that money is likely to have come from UK taxpayers, who gave the country £1billion in aid over five years to 2014, including £248million in 2014 alone&#8217;</em><br />
is crass hypothesizing and irresponsible with no basis in fact. Based on the size of that country&#8217;s GDP as a major oil producer, albeit one with hopelessly mismanaged resources, nontheless a country operating on an economic scale where single individuals have been charged with misappropriating as much as $16billion in stride, from just one government agency within a shorter time spell than the speculated 5 years, to then suggest that $400m per annum in object tied aid was turned into cash and somehow got into the coffers of that country&#8217;s largest oil producing state with an annual budget in scores of billions is pure ignorance and smacks of intellectual arrogance.&#8217; It gives the British taxpayer the misleading picture of floating a hapless dependent economy [on UK].<br />
But is that really the case, considering that Nigeria has the largest economy on the African continent, a population somewhere south of 200million people and a major player in the global oil market. The former british colonies today count among the major trading partners with the UK, as a matter of fact, the Nigerian president responded to Cameron&#8217;s gaffe with a not too subtle reminder that a significant portion of his country&#8217;s loot is in the british banking system. Add the pre-eminent role of British interests such British Petroleum and Shell in the Nigeria&#8217;s economy and the history of commerce between these two countries, maybe the reverse of this arguement is more the case.</p>
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British media speculates the “Nigerian leader’s fantastically corrupt’ pal? probably spent British taxpayer money” – was that really the case
