Grant Shapps, UK’s Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth, has said that because corruption in Nigeria directly affects UK, it will take steps to effectively protect its financial system and support President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade.
Shapps said this while meeting with Governor Nasir El-Rufai in Kaduna, he said “Where assets are recovered, we will return them to Nigeria as soon as we can so they can be used for Nigerian development.”
On how to curb corruption in Nigeria, he urged the President to improve transparency in the oil and gas sector so that all revenues in the sector are accounted for, develop transparent and credible budgets at all levels to ensure that funds are used as planned, cut wastes and leakages from the public sector to ensure that resources deliver services and build the law enforcement agencies’ capacity to investigate, prosecute and convict those that break the rules.
He added that “Corruption is present in very society including the UK. No country is immune. But the solution is not simply to accept it. The solution is better government. That is why the anti-corruption agenda is important to the UK.”