{"id":9100,"date":"2016-05-15T20:17:23","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T20:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=9100"},"modified":"2016-05-15T20:30:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T20:30:28","slug":"9100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=9100","title":{"rendered":"Is Nigerian leader’s pal ‘fantastically corrupt’? Friend of African president accused of stealing \u00a3500million – UK Daily Mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When David Cameron was caught on camera last week before an anti-corruption summit describing Nigeria as \u2018fantastically corrupt\u2019, the African state\u2019s president rallied to the Prime Minister\u2019s defence by agreeing with him. But although Muhammadu Buhari is seen by some as leading the battle against corruption, worrying allegations swirl around one of his close allies.<\/div>\n
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Rotimi Amaechi, who travelled with the president to the summit, is Nigeria\u2019s transport minister and is said to have bankrolled Buhari\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/div>\n
\"Ameachi\"<\/a><\/div>\n
In the Nigerian press he has been dubbed \u2018ATM\u2019 \u2013 the American term for cash machine \u2013 because of his ability to produce vast sums of money at short notice.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
He remains in his post despite being accused of misappropriating \u00a3338million by a commission investigating the sale of state assets.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Some of that money is likely to have come from UK taxpayers, who gave the country \u00a31billion in aid over five years to 2014, including \u00a3248million in 2014 alone.<\/div>\n
Separately, Amaechi is accused of diverting \u00a3140million of state funds into Buhari\u2019s presidential campaign, with reports he paid for media, consultants and private jets.<\/div>\n
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The allegations come as the president stands accused of enjoying a lavish lifestyle while many millions suffer in poverty.<\/div>\n
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A leaked draft budget for 2016 showed the Nigerian government earmarked \u00a316million for the refurbishment and maintenance of the president\u2019s official residence, Aso Rock Guest House, in the capital Abuja.<\/div>\n
There was also a request for \u00a313million for building a VIP wing at a hospital used by families of the president and his ministerial team.<\/div>\n
Mr Amaechi has denied the allegations against him.<\/div>\n
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Source: UK Daily Mail<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When David Cameron was caught on camera last week before an anti-corruption summit describing Nigeria as \u2018fantastically corrupt\u2019, the African state\u2019s president rallied to the Prime Minister\u2019s defence by agreeing with him. But although Muhammadu Buhari is seen by some as leading the battle against corruption, worrying allegations swirl around one of his close allies. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[228,154,462],"class_list":["post-9100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-david-cameron","tag-muhammadu-buhari","tag-rotimi-amaechi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Ameachi.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4oswh-9100","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9103,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions\/9103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}