The member representing Okitipupa/Irele federal constituency of Ondo State in the House of Representatives, Hon. Mike Adeniyi Omogbehin has stated that Nigeria indeed inherited corruption from former Colonial Masters, Britain.
According to him, Africans were highly cultured people and disciplined to the extent that they hardly cheat each other in any form of transactions.
In his reaction to the British Prime Minister’s ‘fantastically corrupt’ remark on Nigeria, Omogbehin called to memory how Britons, during the pre-colonial era would exchange commodities with cowries and in the process cheat Queen Elizabeth of England.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DAILY POST in Abuja, he said “one recalls, in those days before independence, Britons who were engaged in trade would always shortchange Queen Elizabeth of England in the course of commodities’ exchange for cowries, which the Queen gave and that was how they introduced Africans to corruption”.
He argued that the word ‘Corruption’ was not known in Africa, but in Europe, particularly England, because of their unwholesome practices in those days.
Omogbehin wondered how the British Prime Minister, David Cameron dared pass such demeaning remark on Nigeria, when they deliberately introduced bureaucratic bottlenecks to block stashed looted funds from returning to nations of origin, noting that the receiver of looted funds was also corrupt.
“When you talk of corruption, the giver and the taker commits the same offence. When government takes corruption crusade abroad, they promised to cooperate and return stashed funds, but they will deliberately frustrate the efforts of government”, Omogbehin maintained.
He, however blamed President Buhari “whose sing song was how Nigerians were corrupt, each time he goes abroad,” stressing that “it was time Nigeria began serious image laundering on those good things the nation was known for.”
He maintained that the federal government should mount pressures, through diplomatic means so as to return looted funds back to the nation of origin.
