DFID’s Programme in Nigeria

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and the rest of the Committee for their work. She gave an extremely extensive and thorough speech that covered the Committee’s findings on Nigeria. I do not intend to repeat what she said, but I will raise a number of issues that were apparent to me on the Committee’s visit.

As the hon. Lady said, although it is a lower-middle-income country, Nigeria plays host to 120 million people living below or only just above the poverty line, to 10% of the world’s mothers who die in childbirth and to 16% of the world’s out-of-school children. I have to say that what struck me when I arrived there was the inequality, which is absolutely stark: many people have great wealth, but the majority of the population have very little at all.

I ask the Minister what the long-term plan is for DFID’s work with Nigeria and its Government. Nigeria is a lower-middle-income country and it has a number of resources, although they have not provided the same economic benefit in recent years as they did before. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the issue is what systems can be put in place to address inequality and ensure that the economy’s benefits actually reach people who are vulnerable and in need of support. What will the Department do to ensure that such systems will be put in place? What work is taking place with the Government to try to address that? Without those systems, the problem will be self-perpetuating: we will continue to give vast amounts to Nigeria, a lower-middle-income country—I think it is DFID’s second largest bilateral programme in Africa and its third largest in the world—when what it really needs is assistance to self-sustain and make long-term progress in the right direction, so that some of that money can go to other countries that are not in the same financial position.

The other issue that stood out to me was corruption. It was even apparent at the airport: I tried to buy something at the duty-free and was told, “No, you can’t pay with a card—you will have to pay with cash.” Even in places where you would not expect it, there is money flowing through the systems, with very little accountability for how much of it there is and where it ends up, and I imagine that very little tax is being collected. One of the key issues that the Department should look at in Nigeria is electronic cash transfer programmes—we have recently seen some excellent work on those in Kenya—to ensure that the Nigerian Government have a record of where money is being transferred, in shops and throughout the economy, and are therefore much better able to collect taxes. That was not at all evident to me in Nigeria, not even at the airport, which I would have expected to have some system in place.

We were taken to see an anti-corruption tower—that is the only way I can describe it. It was a massive building that the Nigerians hoped we were going to help to fund. It was exorbitant in size. It was to house the anti-corruption teams of the Minister. I was not sure that, by funding a tower, the money was going to go in the right direction—towards anti-corruption policies. What is happening in terms of the work we are doing with the Government and the anti-corruption Minister who was in place at the time to take forward strategic anti-corruption policies? Again, I feel that the crux of the matter is about knowing where money is coming from and where it is going to, and making sure that it is electronically registered.

The Committee recognised the key role of the private sector in successful economic development, but noted that there was not a coherent joined-up strategy between various parts of the UK Government on achieving that. What progress has been made? The other issue of grave concern to me was the prospect of achieving sustainable development goal 4 on education. When I visited the school in Kano in northern Nigeria, there appeared to be great ambivalence about ministerial-led support for girls’ education. Education was taking place in the school, but I would say the quality was extremely poor. On what was being taught, I cannot say from my visit that I had much awareness of any learning other than the continual reciting of religious books. I am all for religious education and I believe parents should have a choice in that regard. However, if we are providing money for education programmes, we should address the quality of those and ensure progress is made. I understand that some progress has been made of late, but I would like that to be repeatedly reviewed because I did not end the education visits with a great sense that the money was being spent in a way that would make a great difference to the girls.

I also had a sense—an undercurrent—of women’s place in Nigeria. That was even apparent when we visited Ministries, where there were no women aside from our own delegation around the table. I asked why there were so few women parliamentarians and I was told they cannot afford to stand. That is a huge gender equality issue. If there are few women in political life in Nigeria, there will be few policies that create gender equality, so we should focus on that. On the idea that someone has to have a set amount of money to stand, obviously, we cannot enforce our absolute democratic principles on every other country, but if we are working with Governments to try to improve governance and democracy, these are conversations that must be had. Unless the system and its failings are addressed, I fear that little will change for girls in Nigeria, particularly in the north, and we will continually have to try to monitor strongly what is happening and doubts regarding the effectiveness of what we do there.

One thing that emotionally struck me was meeting the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaigners, who are out every day speaking about the importance of bringing back the girls safe and alive. I really want the UK Government to work with the Nigerian Government to ensure that we do as much as we can to support them in that regard. We know only too well that defeating extremism should be our priority. It tarnishes society and reduces the hopes of people around the world. We know that only too well today after the impact even in this House.

We must provide support to defeat extremism. At the time, I thought that the Nigerian Government were taking that extremely seriously. I understand that they have made good gains. The President has a military background and defeating extremism is one of the key objectives that he is committed to. We need to support that positive objective to ensure that people in the north, the children, women and families have opportunity and hope outwith being kept in conditions of extremism. We must always fight to try to help to bring back those girls. Where else in the world would hundreds of girls go missing for such a length of time with nothing happening? That is very stark. Some have been released. But they were not found. We need to ensure that we do all we can to bring those girls back safe and alive for their families. I am a mother of girls. I feel very strongly and passionately that we should assist the Government.

Food insecurity is a humanitarian issue now in Nigeria. We must do all that we can to help the vulnerable people there who are suffering from acute malnutrition. We know that the humanitarian appeal has reached only 52% of the funding requirement, so we need to look at that and decide whether there is more that the United Kingdom can do. Again, I come back to saying that there also has to be a long-term plan. Nigeria has grave inequality and pockets of extreme wealth. There has to be a Government plan for situations that arise over the long term. Perhaps the UK might assist Nigeria to put in place a plan to help its own population in future, but in the meantime we have to do everything that we possibly can.

I have concerns regarding the governance of the work that we do in Nigeria. I am hopeful that DFID will be extra scrupulous in looking at programmes, their quality and outcome. Fundamentally, in order to help support Nigeria, there needs to be radical change in the politics in Nigeria and the will to make changes to deal with corruption and inequality. I hope that, wherever possible, the Minister will help to push on those particular issues. Also, I hope he will update us today on what we can do to bring back the Chibok girls.