Chibok girls: Gordon Brown wants UK troops in Nigeria
A former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, has asked
the British government to send troops to Nigeria to help secure the
release of the abducted pupils of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
The girls, well over 200 of them, were kidnapped from their hostels on the night of April 14.
Brown, who is also the United Nations Special Envoy for Global
Education, while speaking during a debate at the House of Commons, said
that in view of the possibility that the kidnapped girls might have been
divided into groups and hidden in separate places, his home government
should send the UK forces to assist Nigeria’s army.
He said,
“These wholly innocent young girls—Lugwa Abuga, Rhoda John, Comfort
Amos, Maryamu Yakubu and 200 others—are now incarcerated in the forest
areas of Borno State. Some have perhaps been dispersed across three
other countries: Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Their physical and mental
health is a worry for everyone.
“If the girls have been
dispersed to a number of different places, a rescue mission for one
group would immediately put the other groups at risk. That is the
dilemma that confronts the Nigerian Government, as I understand it.
“That is why they need additional support to monitor what is happening
and, if it is necessary to intervene, (we should send) the troops,
security services and the air cover to do so.”
Jim Shannon, a
member of the House, told Brown that the legislators were concerned
about the ongoing violence in Nigeria and the continued incarceration of
the schoolgirls.
He however expressed doubts over Nigeria’s reaction to the insurgency.
Shannon said, “The House is filled with members who are equally
concerned about this issue. There has been unwillingness, or perhaps the
Nigerian government have been unable, to respond in the way that we
back home think they should.
“Is that because they are unable
to seek the covert assistance that they need in order to ascertain where
the schoolchildren are and bring them back? Does he feel that perhaps
the covert assistance that this government could offer is one way
forward?”
Brown urged the UK’s lawmakers to prevail on the
country’s government to do more in assisting the Nigerian government,
saying that security at Nigerian schools should be beefed up.
He said, “There is a second thing that we can do to help. We cannot have
safe schools if we do not have safe communities. In addition to the
rising military and security presence in these towns, we need to
allocate extra resources to reassure parents, teachers and children that
they can go to school.
“It has to make its schools safer, so
that there is confidence among pupils and families that children can go
to school. That may mean better perimeter fencing, walls, lighting, and
communication and security systems to keep people in touch.”
Brown, who is promoting the UN’s safe school for children initiative,
explained that Nigeria had already contributed $10m to the project.
According to him, $10m has also come from the business community, £1m
from the UK and $1.5m from Norway.
“Money is coming from other
countries in the EU, and there are promises from the United States of
America. I hope that one outcome of the debate will be to convince the
government that it is worth providing more than £1m. Without this
initiative, many of the other measures in which we are engaged to help
education in Nigeria cannot be successful,” the former prime minister
told the House.
According to Brown, the UN has just passed a
Security Council resolution, Global Coalition to Protect Education from
Attack, which states that schools should have the same legal protection
in conflict areas as hospitals.
“In northern Nigeria today, we
have on the one side terrorists, murderers, rapists and cowards
hell-bent on acts of depravity, and on the other side we have the
defiant, relentless, and brave beyond comprehension young people who are
desperately fighting for a future but are too often oblivious to our
attention.
“We must be clear that in the battle between the
girls of the world and the backward-looking extremists, there will, in
the end, be only one winner, but we should not have to wait another
half-century with millions of lives ruined, millions of dreams
destroyed, millions of hopes and aspirations crushed, for the world to
deliver—as we must for the Nigerian girls, and for girls everywhere—the
opportunities that should be and are every girl’s birth right,” Brown
urged the UK parliament.
Appearing before the parliament
earlier, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of
Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had said that Nigeria was taking a
“three-pronged approach to dealing with the various dimensions of
crisis, and this includes security, political and economic solutions.”
She said, “On the security front, our military men and women are
confronting an unprecedented challenge that they were not really trained
to confront and so we thank them for their courage and bravery. The
President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has increased the
number of troops that are in the North-East from 15,000 to 20,000.
“Regional cooperation on security has got better following a decision
by neighbouring countries: Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Niger, to each
contribute a battalion of soldiers, to fight Boko Haram alongside
Nigeria.
“President Goodluck Jonathan has accepted offers from
the international community for more surveillance, aircraft cover, and
equipment that enhances our ability to locate, fight and root out
insurgents.”
7/04/2014
Chibok girls: Gordon Brown wants UK troops in Nigeria
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