Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to (a) monitor and (b) support the progress of the Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations by the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Nigeria.

The UK Government was deeply concerned by violence during the #EndSARS protests. We continue to monitor progress of the judicial panels of inquiry and have publicly reiterated the importance of transparency and accountability. We have also called for the transparent publication of all reports and stressed the importance of ensuring all alleged incidents of brutality by the security services are investigated fully, and the need for anyone found responsible to be held to account. We continue to call on the Nigerian police to uphold human rights and the rule of law in all operations and the UK Government will continue to follow all developments closely.

We continue to advocate for, and support, security sector reform in Nigeria. I visited Nigeria in February, and discussed the importance of human rights in my meetings with the Federal Government of Nigeria. During the recent UK-Nigeria Security and Defence Partnership (S&DP) Dialogue, we hosted a Human Rights forum, at which the UK agreed future cooperation with Nigeria on topics including: human rights and policing; human rights in conflict, including compliance from security forces; and women, peace and security.