Boko Haram

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Northover is at the African Union summit this week, and will no doubt be taking part in some of those conversations. We are consulting not only with our North American and Commonwealth colleagues; Niger and Cameroon are directly affected. The French, British and American Governments, in particular, are working with all the countries in that region because Boko Haram, as noble Lords know, does not respect borders.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, given the pivotal role of the Commonwealth—with two affected countries, Nigeria and Cameroon, being members—it is appalling that the Commonwealth Secretary-General took four months before he responded to the abduction in the first instance; and can the Minister tell the House a little more about what efforts we are taking within the Commonwealth to step up efforts to defeat Boko Haram?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We are working very closely with Nigeria. I am not fully briefed on how far the rest of the Commonwealth is involved, but we have a training team and an intelligence team working with the Nigerians on coping with the pressure from Boko Haram, which now occupies a substantial chunk of north-eastern Nigeria.