John Redwood
Main Page: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)Department Debates - View all John Redwood's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Swire
No one living outside the affected areas in Nigeria should believe for one minute that they are immune to the possible terrorist activities of Boko Haram. As I said, there is an election in February, and presumably there are those who wish to campaign in this large chunk of the country in the north. It is a problem for Nigeria. Yes, we certainly wish that its institutions were stronger, but I think that both the Nigerian Government and the international community are absolutely certain that Boko Haram needs to be routed out, and quickly, before it does further damage within the country and to its vulnerable neighbours.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I agree entirely with what the Minister and the shadow Minister have said. I particularly agree with the Government’s decision not to intervene in Nigeria directly with military force. Will the Minister explain, though, why the west is right to try to use military force in Syria and Iraq, in rather similar situations, but not in Nigeria?
Mr Swire
We have deployed assistance to Nigeria and we will continue to do so, particularly on the intelligence side. I repeat that Nigeria is one of the richest countries in Africa and it spends 20% of its own budget on defence expenditure. In the normal course of events, it should be able to handle these things itself, but it cannot, and that is why we are providing assistance to enable it to do so. Drawing any parallel between what is going on in Syria and Iraq is not useful, if I may say so. This is something localised to Nigeria, and we want to prevent it from spreading across other parts of Africa.