Violence against Religious Groups: Nigeria

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

As the hon. Member quite correctly says, this is an extremely challenging issue that has been going on for many years, with terrorist attacks in north-east Nigeria and instances of intercommunal violence in many states having had devastating impacts on both Christians and Muslim communities. The Nigerian Government have worked with us in the security and defence dialogue that we launched earlier this year. In the first dialogue they asked us, for example, to improve mentoring and capacity building for the police, to improve their work, and we reiterated our shared understanding and commitment to protecting human rights for all. However, there are so many different drivers. That is why the work that we have done with the vice-president’s office on other ways of rearing cattle to try to reduce conflicts between different communities is also really important. We work on those projects while we can with the Government, but it is extremely important that we continue to urge all parties, including those hoping to stand in next year’s election, to keep the calm and not incite violence.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The shock of these unprovoked attacks is made all the more heartbreaking by the fact that they included children. The Liberal Democrats add our voices of condemnation to those across the House. The Minister has rightly identified that the causes are complex—they are to do with lack of resources and insecurity—but I am afraid that the Government’s money is not where their mouth is. Not only have they cut the aid budget to Nigeria by half, but the forward projections are no good, either. Aid went from £237 million to £117 million and will go to £73 million, £55 million and then £40 million. How does that dwindling budget tally with what the Minister says about the country being serious about tackling the root causes of this terrorism?

[Vicky Ford]

It is really important to look at what we have done. I have mentioned a number of different projects, and others are coming. For example, our LINKS programme has facilitated investments worth more than £14 million. That has created 20,000 full-time jobs and has been helping to pay more than 48,000 people and increase their incomes since 2019. As I said, when I visited the region, I was moved to hear how the relationships between community members and members of the forces had significantly improved in the Lake Chad basin. It is a very difficult part of the world with high levels of conflict—the country has some of the highest levels of conflict in the world—but there were slithers of optimism that we should continue to try to develop.