Chibok Schoolgirls

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for securing this extremely important debate. He is a fine Chair of the International Development Committee, and it is a pleasure to serve on that cross-party Committee with him and other colleagues. I would particularly like to thank the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), who has just given an extremely poignant speech that almost brought me to tears.

I have a strong interest in this matter. As colleagues have described, earlier this year I visited Nigeria with the International Development Committee, where we met with the Bring Back Our Girls campaigners, whose tireless work keeps the Chibok girls’ memory alive. It has been now more than two years since the Chibok girls were abducted by Boko Haram from their school in northern Nigeria. Other than a few who escaped, they have not been rescued or returned. It is not fathomable for those of us living in the west that our child could be abducted from school for the proposed crime of seeking an education, or that girls, by sole virtue of their gender, should be denied that education. The pain suffered by the parents, who wanted the best for their girls and sent them to school, never to return, is unimaginable. What has become of the Chibok girls during the past two years remains largely unknown.

We visited schools that have bravely dared to reopen since this atrocity occurred, and we spoke with Nigerian politicians about the current status of girls’ education in Nigeria and the continued fight against the brutal extremism of Boko Haram. Arriving in northern Nigeria was daunting, to say the least. I have never been anywhere where the security was intensified so significantly for myself and the group. We were given security briefings, transported in armoured vehicles, had body armour fitted and were protected by armed guards. That shows just how difficult and risky the situation remains for citizens in Nigeria and particularly for young girls at school.

We visited two schools in Kano, one a state school and the other run by the local church. Both were co-educational, although it was difficult to fathom whether the curriculum differed for boys and girls. We were told that early marriage remains the norm for girls in the north of the country, due to both cultural and religious beliefs, which interferes with the length of girls’ education and therefore the intrinsic value for parents of sending them to school at all. Millions of children are still not recorded as being in school, and those who are experience overcrowded classrooms of 100-plus children.

There are significant problems for the Government in providing quality education, due to a lack of teacher training and resources. Cultural beliefs, security issues and lack of future opportunity present ongoing barriers to sending girls to school in Nigeria. The girls we met, from primary to secondary level, wanted to learn, had aspirations and voiced ambitions to become hairdressers, nurses, teachers and doctors. It was depressing that despite their ability, ambition and motivation, they were unlikely to realise their dreams.

Meeting with the Bring Back Our Girls campaigners in Abuja was one of those moments in life that grounds you. They have been campaigning for the return of the Chibok girls for more than two years and have pledged to keep the girls’ memory alive outside Parliament until they return. Realistically, hopes have become slim. The Government have reported no new leads, and we were told that it is highly likely that many of the girls have been married to Boko Haram soldiers, incurred sexual violence or even been killed. As we heard, one of the girls was recently located with a child. Given cultural beliefs, it is difficult for her to reintegrate into society, such is the stigma of her situation.

Meeting Government officials in Nigeria was equally sobering. A new Government have heralded renewed efforts to tackle the country’s problems, including corruption going up to the highest levels of society and inequality. They should be commended for that. However, the lack of female representation in Parliament is stark and has actually reduced since the current Government came to power. Equality issues do not appear to be high on the agenda, and without concerted efforts to increase women’s representation at all levels of society, it is difficult to see how culture will shift and the lot of young girls within Nigeria be significantly altered.

The Chibok girls who were abducted hold the same value as girls across the world. It is hard for me to believe that if this had happened elsewhere in the west, more would not have been done to bring them back at an earlier stage. The new Government have reportedly increased efforts to improve security and to tackle Boko Haram, with limited success—but some success—so far. People we spoke to said that they now feel more able to go out after 6 o’clock, though security issues remain paramount. Some parts of north-eastern Nigeria were completely off limits due to security issues. The population remains displaced and the schools in those areas closed. There is a long road to tackle extremism in those areas, to offer alternative hope and to support the population out of poverty.

I urge the Minister to keep these girls at the forefront of our minds. Pressure from international Governments appears to have dissipated over time, and it must be resurrected to give hope to the Chibok girls and to girls across Nigeria and the developing world. The parents we met despair, but they will never give up hope for the return of their girls.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Let me start by congratulating the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this debate, which is very timely and on an issue that we should not forget. I am very grateful to him. I thank too all those who have contributed so far and made valuable points. I do not want to say anything that might diminish their points, which I fully support. The situation is tragic not just for the girls, important though that is, but for their families. Some speakers have given weight to the fact that we are talking about girls who are daughters, cousins and members of larger family groups. That is an important feature of Nigeria.

In my short contribution, I want to widen the debate, pick up some of the points about the underlying cause of the situation and try to give some guidance on how it might be prevented from continuing. I do that in my role as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Nigeria. I have just come back from a visit there when I was able to raise this on several occasions with Ministers and businessmen operating there. First, I want to echo the comments of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby about the success the Nigerian Government are beginning to have against Boko Haram. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) pointed out the large area that it still covers, principally because Nigeria is a very big country, but Boko Haram is being contained. I like to believe that our advice on counter-terrorism and our practical assistance to the armed forces in Nigeria are helping to do that.

All that is good, but it is not enough and the underlying causes of Boko Haram need to be examined. It seems from conversations that Boko Haram’s terrorist threat is linked to the economic situation in the country. The hon. Lady mentioned some of the issues that contribute to that, one being the extent of corruption in a country where 40% of oil revenues are stolen before they reach the Revenue. That is a phenomenal amount of lost revenue that the country could use in the fight against Boko Haram by making conditions much better for people. We must give all the support we can to President Buhari and his Government who, after all, came to power on an agenda to tackle corruption. He is doing that effectively as far he can.

Hon. Members have mentioned peace and justice and I want to pick up on the justice elements because the British judiciary is participating in projects to toughen up the Nigerian judiciary and to give it the ability to tackle these problems in its courtrooms. All that is an important contribution to the work of President Buhari and his Government to try to increase the extent to which the country is tackling underlying causes.

Secondly, the problems in Nigeria will not go away until the currency has been sorted out. Earlier in the year, the Central Bank of Nigeria stated that it would introduce a flexible currency for the future, but we are still waiting for details of exactly what that means. Until then, British companies will resist going into the country. This market will have 400 million people by 2050 and has enormous opportunities for British companies that want to go there. Dealing with the currency problem will have the enormous advantage of ensuring that companies go in sooner rather than later, and by going in sooner they will exert influence over the Buhari Government and their successors and start to take action themselves.

My third point is about the prosperity agenda, which goes across Government and includes the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office. Its purpose is to increase the country’s prosperity. All trade envoys are looking out for opportunities to encourage the use of the prosperity agenda, particularly for training.

All that leads to stability in the local marketplace and that too helps the situation. But it is really important that we concentrate on ensuring that the prosperity does not go to just a few rich Nigerians. Boko Haram has such success in the north of the country because it is one of the poorest areas. If that wealth is spread more effectively, we will begin to see the erosion of Boko Haram and, I hope, release of the girls.

[Dr Cameron]

I am enjoying listening to the hon. Gentleman’s expertise in the area. It was marked during our visit that there is little electronic transfer of money in Nigeria. I am wondering whether progress been made on that because the Government were unable to collect many of the taxes that were due because money was being bartered and there was no record of it.

[John Howell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and I wish I could answer yes, but I cannot. The situation is confused and in the last few weeks it has got worse for electronic transfer of money. That, too, is something the Buhari Government must concentrate on to make sure there is a free-flowing money system that will tackle directly the Boko Haram challenge and hopefully lead to release of the girls.

I want to pick up on a point that the hon. Lady made about equality. During one of my visits I went to LADOL, a deep-water offshore oil and gas company run by a woman who trained as a surgeon in Oxford. Although she has two brothers, she was invited back by her father to run the company because of her undoubted ability to do so. It was a great pleasure to see her. She set us up with a long line of inspections of the army, the police, customs officials and taxmen, all of whom were stationed on her free trade island in the lagoon at Lagos. Believe it or not, I had to take the salute. It was fascinating.

At a dinner with Nigerian businessmen afterwards, I asked why this woman was not in the Nigerian Parliament and the answer was simply because she is a woman. It was as bold and as simple as that and came from prominent businessmen in Nigeria. I do not think they approved of that and I think they took the view that it was bad, but that the fact that she was there—admittedly she was an exception—was a move in the right direction towards more equality.

There is a trend for the middle classes in Nigeria to come to London. While I am a trade envoy, I want to take London to Nigeria because I firmly believe that will build a stronger middle class in Nigeria which will help to press for release of the girls and the ending of the Boko Haram menace.

Also, to the extent that I have not had the opportunity to do this so far, I would like to have discussions with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby offline, because anything that I can do when I go out there to push this agenda forward, I will very happily do to ensure that this issue is taken up and pursued with equal vigour by President Buhari and his Government and the British Government.

DFID does and has done a number of things in Nigeria that I want to pick up. One is that, since 2011, the incomes of 1.1 million people have been raised by up to 50%; 200,000 of them were women. That is a very good targeted use of our money in that country. Similarly, in terms of the focus that there has been on state budgets, looking at both education and health, that money has been extremely well spent. It is useful to reflect that the work being done on privatisation of the power sector also has an effect. It, too, leads to a much broader and more secure economy that helps tackle Boko Haram and this whole issue. I understand that DFID now spends more than 60% of its funds in Nigeria in six northern states, which I think is a very good move. It is one that I am sure we all, across the House, will support and, hopefully, enjoy.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this important debate. He does incredible work as Chair of the International Development Committee. He raises the interesting concept—I do not know whether we can formalise it—that when the Committee makes such a visit perhaps there should be a more formal opportunity to present its findings, rather than simply producing a standard report. Members on both sides of the House have articulated a sense of knowledge and expertise, as well as a commitment to really understand these issues and to press the Government, and indeed the international community, to see what more we can do. Hearing people say that is more powerful than any report, even though the report is valuable, too.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on leading the Committee’s visit in March. It was clearly very productive. I join him and other hon. Members, some of whom are wearing their “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign badges with pride to raise the campaign’s profile—as has been mentioned, the campaign has reached the White House and elsewhere—in reminding people that it has now been a couple of years since the horrible abduction of these missing children. I am pleased that we have this opportunity to debate the matter, which allows me, as the Minister with responsibility for Africa, to place on the record what the Government are doing.

There has been a huge number of questions, as there always is. I will do my best to answer them in the time provided but, as usual, I will write to Members in detail if I am not able to provide the necessary full answers here today. We were all very moved by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). She has a powerful understanding of what is going on, and she provides a level of expertise and a forthright understanding of what is actually happening there, not least the power of the campaign. I pay tribute to her for raising this matter again and again. We all owe her tribute for her work.

The hon. Member for East Kirkbride (Dr Cameron) made it clear that we know very little about—[Interruption.] Sorry, do I have the constituency wrong? You are laughing at me, but that could be for a myriad reasons.

[Dr Cameron]

It is East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow.

[Mr Ellwood]

I now realise why I missed off the last part. The hon. Lady made the astute point that we do not really know what has happened to these girls in the past two years. We absolutely do not know. Anybody who is a parent or who has a sister can only guess what these people are going through and enduring. We need to provide mental support when the girls return because there is no doubt that they have been mentally scarred by what they are going through. That is very important.

[Mr Graham Brady in the Chair]

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) and I had the opportunity to discuss Nigeria only a couple of days ago, when we had our first meeting in the capacity of inviting trade envoys for Africa to the Foreign Office. It was timely for us to engage on that matter. I join others in paying tribute to his work. He reminded us of some of the underlying causes that must be dealt with, not least the economy. We can try to defeat insurgencies militarily, but ultimately, we must give the people and communities something better to look forward to. They need a way of life that is successful and more attractive than that offered by an extremist organisation. The detailed knowledge that he brings is much appreciated.

My hon. Friend mentioned the huge challenge that the size of the country presents. I will touch on that a little later. The scale for the military combing through the various parts of Borno and east Nigeria is immense, which is why the international community must work together. Once we have done that and created an umbrella of security, that is when an economic strategy needs to kick in. The ingredients are there. Nigeria is a powerful country in Africa. As he highlighted, there is much that we can do on bilateral relationships. He has illustrated clearly that he is the right person for the job, and we will continue to work with him.

The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), if I have pronounced that correctly, spoke about the value of the Committee’s visit in March. I have underlined why I appreciate its work. He emphasised that there are parents out there who are missing their children. We are debating the issue and highlighting it, and there are people watching and discussing it, but there are also parents who are aware every single moment of the day that their loved ones are missing, and we should be conscious of that.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) underlined the value of this debate. She is right that Thursday afternoon is not always the busiest—there are other things going on across the estate—but it is important that we debate such matters, and I hope that we will have a regular opportunity to discuss the wider issues to do with this part of Africa as well as the plight of these schoolgirls. She is right to remind us of that.

The hon. Lady also discussed the call for increased international assistance. At the UN General Assembly in a couple of weeks, we will hold an event to rally further support for what we are doing to assist Nigerians in defeating extremism and freeing the girls. She also highlighted the importance and value of education. If I may, I will write to her in more detail about the DFID programme that is in place and how we are making huge efforts to provide education, particularly to girls, so they can have the best opportunities in life. I will be in touch with her.