Britain has said that it will provide improved support to Nigeria’s renewed battle against Boko Haram extremists.
Signalling improving ties with Nigeria since the inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari as president, James Duddridge, the UK’s Africa minister, said Britain was willing to provide more technical support, military training and increased assistance with intelligence sharing.
The development comes as the United States of America announced this week it was providing $5m to support a multinational task force to fight Boko Haram.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Duddridge said it would be “inconceivable” for the UK not to do “more in the North-East to support Nigeria.”
“We can do a lot more in terms of training and how to use . . . intelligence, that is where we really leverage our experience,” Duddridge said, promising “more help on the technical side”.
“We have the intelligence sharing but [we need to train them] how to use that intelligence, how to help structure the army, how they integrate through the multinational task force,” he added.
His comments follows appeals by President Buhari to the G7 group of nations to step up assistance to Nigeria, which is taking command of a regional counter-terror task force.
Concerns about corruption in the army, and human rights abuses in its prosecution of the war against Boko Haram, stymied US military support for the previous government of Goodluck Jonathan.
Britain trained two companies credited this year with a successful campaign to drive the extremists from territory captured in Adamawa State.
A British official said, “We are moving up to battalion-scale training and hope to work soon at divisional level. The inhibitors have been access and the Nigerian army’s absorption capacity, both of which we hope urgently to address with the new government.”
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A resident British military team in Nigeria is already assisting the country’s forces with training and advice on counterinsurgency.
The UK is also providing satellite imagery to an “intelligence fusion cell” in Abuja, where British, US and French personnel are working alongside Nigerians. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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