By Christel Odili
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mrs. Khadija Bukar Abba Ibrahim, has said that Britain is considering strengthening
its military training mission to Nigeria to further eliminate the activities of insurgents in the country.
Mrs. Khadija Bukar Abba Ibrahim, disclosed this while receiving the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles and his wife, Duchess Camila at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport yesterday, in Abuja.
She noted that, the UK is to help the personnel of the Nigerian Military develop competent skills to tackle insurgency, while disclosing that, the Britain is leading the way in its commitment to supporting a safe and stable Nigeria.
According to her, “We have had collaborations, Trainings and intelligence sharing an we have a defense attaché that is here in Nigerian and we also have one in England, I think Britain has played a big role especially in the united Nations peace Keeping works as well, they are involved in a lot of security issues in Nigeria”.
“Mr. President will reiterate our relationship and also talk about how far we have gone in developing our country as a whole, so there is going to be a lot of discussions along those areas”, she said.
The Minister further disclosed that UK shares a deep and long-standing Defence partnership with Nigeria, and several UK personnel are deployed on an enduring basis in country to coordinate training and advisory support.
On his part, the British High Commissioner, Mr. Paul Arkwright, disclosed that the Uk has been providing military support to Nigeria in the last four years.
According to him, “we have trained over 30, 000 troops in the fight against boko haram terrorists in the North East. And we are providing support in other ways such as in intelligence amongst others”.
“We have already provided lots of support, when the Prime Minister was here, barely two months ago we signed security defense agreement which would increase our support and we are looking at other ways through which we can provide support because Nigeria needs support in that area”.
He further stated that the UK is not actively involved in the farmers/herder’s clash, but are also looking at ways through which we can help with reconciliation and mediation.
His word, “We are involved in the mediation efforts which is the peace efforts in the middle belts encouraging them to come forward, this is not a religious conflict it’s not about Muslims against Christians, there are lots of deep-rooted causes and its and we have to get to the bottom of it.
On the issue of battalion training, he said, “what we like to do is to train what we call Form Units, not just individuals but actually groups of Nigerian Military that move, work and get deployed together to the Northeast so that they are much more effective, that is the way we want to move”.
“We have a lot of training going on at Jaji in Kaduna state, and we are looking at bringing all of that together so we can train what we call formed units”, he opined.
Recall that, On the second stop of her first trip to Africa, UK prime minister Theresa May chose to focus on security in Nigeria.
Announcing a new security and defense pact Aug. 29, 2018, May committed to increased military support through training and the provision of equipment to help Nigeria combat the terrorist sect Boko Haram.
The UK also promised to fund $16 million in school equipment and training for teachers to serve 100,000 children disrupted by the insurgency. May announced plans for more economic co-operation with Nigeria, keeping with the overall theme of her visit to Africa.