Chibok girls: Gordon Brown wants UK troops in Nigeria

A former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, has asked the British government to send troops to Nigeria to help secure the release of the abducted pupils of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

The girls, well over 200 of them, were kidnapped from their hostels on the night of April 14.

Brown, who is also the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, while speaking during a debate at the House of Commons, said that in view of the possibility that the kidnapped girls might have been divided into groups and hidden in separate places, his home government should send the UK forces to assist Nigeria’s army.

He said, “These wholly innocent young girls—Lugwa Abuga, Rhoda John, Comfort Amos, Maryamu Yakubu and 200 others—are now incarcerated in the forest areas of Borno State. Some have perhaps been dispersed across three other countries: Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Their physical and mental health is a worry for everyone.

“If the girls have been dispersed to a number of different places, a rescue mission for one group would immediately put the other groups at risk. That is the dilemma that confronts the Nigerian Government, as I understand it.

“That is why they need additional support to monitor what is happening and, if it is necessary to intervene, (we should send) the troops, security services and the air cover to do so.”

Jim Shannon, a member of the House, told Brown that the legislators were concerned about the ongoing violence in Nigeria and the continued incarceration of the schoolgirls.

He however expressed doubts over Nigeria’s reaction to the insurgency.

Shannon said, “The House is filled with members who are equally concerned about this issue. There has been unwillingness, or perhaps the Nigerian government have been unable, to respond in the way that we back home think they should.

“Is that because they are unable to seek the covert assistance that they need in order to ascertain where the schoolchildren are and bring them back? Does he feel that perhaps the covert assistance that this government could offer is one way forward?”

Brown urged the UK’s lawmakers to prevail on the country’s government to do more in assisting the Nigerian government, saying that security at Nigerian schools should be beefed up.

He said, “There is a second thing that we can do to help. We cannot have safe schools if we do not have safe communities. In addition to the rising military and security presence in these towns, we need to allocate extra resources to reassure parents, teachers and children that they can go to school.

“It has to make its schools safer, so that there is confidence among pupils and families that children can go to school. That may mean better perimeter fencing, walls, lighting, and communication and security systems to keep people in touch.”

Brown, who is promoting the UN’s safe school for children initiative, explained that Nigeria had already contributed $10m to the project. According to him, $10m has also come from the business community, £1m from the UK and $1.5m from Norway.

“Money is coming from other countries in the EU, and there are promises from the United States of America. I hope that one outcome of the debate will be to convince the government that it is worth providing more than £1m. Without this initiative, many of the other measures in which we are engaged to help education in Nigeria cannot be successful,” the former prime minister told the House.

According to Brown, the UN has just passed a Security Council resolution, Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, which states that schools should have the same legal protection in conflict areas as hospitals.

“In northern Nigeria today, we have on the one side terrorists, murderers, rapists and cowards hell-bent on acts of depravity, and on the other side we have the defiant, relentless, and brave beyond comprehension young people who are desperately fighting for a future but are too often oblivious to our attention.

“We must be clear that in the battle between the girls of the world and the backward-looking extremists, there will, in the end, be only one winner, but we should not have to wait another half-century with millions of lives ruined, millions of dreams destroyed, millions of hopes and aspirations crushed, for the world to deliver—as we must for the Nigerian girls, and for girls everywhere—the opportunities that should be and are every girl’s birth right,” Brown urged the UK parliament.

Appearing before the parliament earlier, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had said that Nigeria was taking a “three-pronged approach to dealing with the various dimensions of crisis, and this includes security, political and economic solutions.”

She said, “On the security front, our military men and women are confronting an unprecedented challenge that they were not really trained to confront and so we thank them for their courage and bravery. The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has increased the number of troops that are in the North-East from 15,000 to 20,000.

“Regional cooperation on security has got better following a decision by neighbouring countries: Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Niger, to each contribute a battalion of soldiers, to fight Boko Haram alongside Nigeria.

“President Goodluck Jonathan has accepted offers from the international community for more surveillance, aircraft cover, and equipment that enhances our ability to locate, fight and root out insurgents.”