Nigeria: Fulani

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

First, I totally concur with the noble Lord. Membership of the Commonwealth brings additional responsibilities for any country wishing to be an active and fully engaged member. I assure him that we are working closely with the Government of Nigeria. President Buhari himself has condemned these clashes. There is also an initiative from the Christian vice-president, who is taking forward a national strategy to address the issue of violence directly. He has already engaged directly with governors. We are also providing support and assistance to communities on the ground to ensure that those communities—be they of whatever religion, Christian or Muslim—can work together to defeat the scourge of extremism. This is a long process; that does not mean that we bail out at the first challenge. I fully accept that the situation of Christians in Nigeria is dire, but it is important that we engage even more forcefully now to ensure that we can beat the groups which seek to destabilise Nigeria.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as a fellow officer of the APPG it was a pleasure to respond to the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for the group to launch an inquiry into this matter. The evidence has been that the violence goes across many states but that it is complex and various factors are at play. One key theme has been that the perception is rising that religion is a motivating factor, due to the use of social media, fake news and, often, the lack of capacity in civil society to investigate what is happening. Whatever part religion actually plays, in and of itself, the perception that it is playing a heightened role is a concern. Will my noble friend the Minister please outline what funding from the FCO and DfID can be given to civil society in Nigeria to increase its capacity to get accurate information about these attacks? Many of them, particularly Muslim-on-Muslim attacks, are going underreported in Nigeria.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend is quite right to point out the extensive level of support. I assure her that our work in Nigeria represents, I believe, the fifth-largest DfID support programme and our second largest in Africa. Various organisations are engaged on a series of initiatives; whether we are talking about schoolchildren, teacher training or building community capacity, we are working at all levels. When my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary visited Nigeria, he went to Maiduguri and saw directly how the UK is contributing to a programme for Nigeria to fight against terrorism. Again, we have emphasised the importance of the British Government standing in support of all initiatives. We are working with a raft of organisations on the ground and I will write to my noble friend in that respect.