Nigeria (Abducted Girls)

Debate between Gordon Brown and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for permitting me to raise the desperate and continuing plight of more than 200 Nigerian girls who were abducted from school on 14 April and have been held in captivity for the past 80 days, with no sign of their imminent release. 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.

We now know that the girls were kidnapped by the terrorist group, Boko Haram, whose name in Hausa means “western education is a sin”. They are being held hostage simply because they wanted an education. Their only crime in the eyes of Boko Haram is that they wanted to be at school. Eleven weeks in captivity will seem like an eternity for young, once-optimistic 14, 15 and 16-year-old girls, whose future was all ahead of them until that day.

I am sure that everybody in the Chamber would accept that such an outrage is every parent’s nightmare: your child leaves home and goes to school, but never comes home again; you wake up every morning not knowing whether your child is dead or alive, and spend every waking hour of the day not knowing whether your child is being molested, raped, trafficked or sold into slavery; and you have the terrible truth brought home to you that schools are no longer safe havens for your children, but theatres of war.

Boko Haram’s perversion of its faith is so profound that it is apparently unperturbed by practising violence against young girls, even rape that causes unwanted pregnancies—damage to young girls that will endure and be lifelong, and that cannot be wished away even if they are returned safely to their homes.

As we heard only a few minutes ago, in a Committee Room of the House of Commons, from Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy—my grateful thanks to you, Mr Speaker, for chairing the event—across the country, tragedy is being piled on tragedy. There has been a series of attacks: a wave of bombings in Borno state yesterday; an explosion in a shopping mall in Abuja last week, which killed 24 people; a medical college raid last week in Kano, killing eight; a hotel bombing in Bauchi city, killing 10; and attacks on four churches, killing 24. Residents of remote villages in northern Nigeria are fearful of night raids and running short of food and supplies. They are fleeing to the mountain caves, or to bigger towns. With more than 1,000 reported abductions in the past year alone, and more than 5,000 deaths at the hands of Boko Haram in the past five years, the governor of Borno state, who has courageously spoken out, is warning that failure to help his embattled schools and families will spell disaster for the rule of law in the whole of Nigeria.

The 200 girls, whose faces and names are now known to the world, thanks to the efforts of the brave chairman of the Chibok community council, are not the only victims. There is another, less obvious, set of victims: the thousands of girls, and many boys, who can no longer go to school. Schools are closed in many parts of Borno state, and teachers are in fear of their lives. Education International, the global teachers’ union, which is well organised and engaged with this problem, has reported in the past few years on the murder of 171 teachers who were shot, usually in their own home and in front of their families, who were then kidnapped by gunmen. Their crime was to dare to teach girls at all. We therefore have another emergency in Nigeria: education in Borno state is coming to a standstill for fear of terrorists, and that demands an international and domestic response.

In the days immediately after the abduction, I and many others tried to secure international attention and the widest possible global support for the Nigerian girls. A month ago, an enormous wave of concern was expressed in every capital of the world. There was, as we know, a period of intense publicity, and a worldwide campaign to bring back our girls secured 1 million supporters, but once again the attention span of the world has proved limited, and interest has ebbed. Even when it was reported last week that another 90 children—60 girls and 30 boys—had been kidnapped, there was only a flicker of attention across the world.

Following the speech by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala this evening, I wanted a debate before the summer recess—thanks to you it has happened, Mr Speaker—because it is time to wake up fully not just to the horror of what is happening, but to the ramifications for children, Nigeria and that part of Africa if nothing is done. A few terrorists can never be allowed at any time to blackmail a whole nation. We must do more to help the Nigerian Government back up the endeavours of President Goodluck Jonathan to secure the rescue of the girls and make inroads into the advances made by the terrorists.

I am here to thank the Government for what they have done so far, and for their moral, physical and military support to the Nigerian people. I know that the President of Nigeria wishes to give thanks for the offers of support from China, the United States, France and Israel, as well as Britain. I have met the President on three occasions recently, and he has sent an additional 5,000 troops to the Borno state and is ready to do more. As a result of his pleas to the international community, Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Britain and the US have already established an external intelligence response unit to share security information. While it is right to recognise that there has been a great deal of international support, it is also right to acknowledge that in its hour of need, Nigeria requires more helicopter support, more aircraft cover, and more surveillance equipment. I believe that we should also support President Jonathan’s call for a better co-ordinated system for sharing intelligence across borders, and for, if necessary, the use of special forces and law enforcement agencies to help Nigeria confront terrorism.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I sought the right hon. Gentleman’s permission to intervene, and I thank him for bringing this matter to the House. The House is filled with Members who are equally concerned about this issue, and on behalf of the Church groups and my constituents, I want to share the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns publicly in the Chamber today. There has been an 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 assistant that this Government could offer is one way forward?

[Mr Brown]

I am grateful for the support of the Churches in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and elsewhere. Support from around the world is giving succour and confidence to the Nigerian people. I met schoolchildren who have been writing letters to the Nigerian President in support of Nigeria’s efforts to try to capture the terrorists and release the girls. He is absolutely right that there is a real problem. 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, the troops, security services and the air cover to do so.

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. The safe schools initiative, launched this afternoon in Britain by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is a plan to rebuild the burnt-out schools that have been the casualties of terrorist incursions, starting with the Chibok school. Our promise must be that it will be rebuilt immediately and made safe, so that when the girls are returned to their homes, their school at Chibok is safe for them to learn in without fear. The worry for many in northern Nigeria is that their school will be the next to face a terrorist raid.