Some British citizens are currently not happy that the aid extended to Nigeria by their country are being stolen or mismanaged and have accused their government for fuelling corruption in Nigeria.
Chatham House, a think-tank group and home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs reported that United Kingdom had doled out more than £1billion in aid to Nigeria, while Nigeria's corrupt officials allow £2billion of oil to be shipped out illegally and stolen every year and further stated, the aid may not be going to those who need it most after all.
Chatham House, further threw doubts over the fate of aid money sent to Nigeria, while an angry British citizen has asked the UK to burn the aid money instead of doling it to corrupt Nigerian leaders as the aid may not be going to those who need it most after all.
It said foreign oil workers have watched as tankers known to be loaded with illicit cargo have sailed past patrol vessels unmolested with Chatham House stressing that the proceeds of oil theft were then laundered in major financial markets, with the City of London key among them. Singapore and Dubai in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) are the other havens.
The Chatham House have this to say...“The greatest victims are ordinary Nigerians. The trade destroys the environment, weakens public institutions, swallows government revenue that could buy public goods, and imposes other social costs,”
It warned that the scale of the stolen oil trade ‘threatens the integrity of financial markets and the legitimate oil business.’.
Last month after The Mail, a leading British newspaper questioned Nigeria's share of the aid was questioned and reported: “Some 100,000 barrels of oil a day are being stolen from pipelines, ports and storage tanks with the connivance of politicians, officials and military top brass, says an authoritative report,”
Further.....the Chatham House report said: “Nigerian crude oil is being stolen on an industrial scale. Proceeds are laundered through world financial centres. In Nigeria, politicians, military officers, militants, oil industry personnel, oil traders and communities profit, as do organised criminal groups."
Britain is named as a ‘hotspot’ where the profits are laundered. The process involves ‘bulk cash smuggling … heavy use of middlemen, shell companies and tax havens, bribery of bank officials, cycling cash through legitimate businesses and cash purchases of luxury
Also, the Tory backbenchers have criticised Prime Minister David Cameron's commitment to increased aid spending as the cash amounts to subsidies for rich people in developing countries at the expense of the British poor.
But some angry British queried the aid and one even said: “Nigeria is so corrupt, they would rather gather the money and burn it.”
Another Briton said: “It's a magic trick. They (British government) take large amounts of public money and give it away then they get some back via business deals usually with company's they are involved with or are very friendly with and some of the money magically makes it way back but ends up in their pocket in a round about kind of way.”
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