Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the human rights implications of UK military assistance to the Nigerian government to help combat Boko Haram.

When providing military assistance to another nation, the Ministry of Defence is required under the UK Government’s Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) Human Rights Guidance to consider the possibility of that assistance directly or significantly contributing to a violation of human rights and to identify measures that mitigate this risk. We continue to follow these stringent guidelines. The UK Government has made clear to the Nigerian authorities at all levels that, whilst we support Nigeria’s fight against terrorism, we do not condone human rights violations.