Lloyd: Leaders Should Let Perceptions Of Corruption Be Adequately Dealt With, Legally And Politically

Mr. Andrew Lloyd, CMG MBE, is Her Majesty’s British High Commissioner to Nigeria, non-Resident Ambassador to the Republic of Benin and Permanent Representative to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In this interview with ALABI WILLIAMS, he appraises relations between Nigeria and the United Kingdom and commented on democracy, corruption and the security challenges of the moment. Shortly after the 2011 general elections and the post-election violence, you were quite optimistic that things would calm down and give way to good governance. What is your assessment one year after? I think that the stride of democracy continues and there is no doubt that it was a significant achievement for Nigeria to have so many people participate in the election of April last year. And so the challenge now, I know there are numerous challenges is to ensure the democracy that everybody believes in turns into delivery for peoples’ basic needs, for their security and for their

wellbeing. And of course there are significant challenges. Looking at the security, will you say some strides have been achieved? I think there are some huge challenges and we saw an example of that just this weekend (too weeks ago), with those terrible attacks in Kaduna. And I think it is important to remember that this is not a popular setback. The attacks taking place have been carried out by a very small number of people; they are indiscriminate, they are criminal and they are harming people who just want to get on with their live continued