Apparently excited by the emergence of Muhammadu
Buhari as Nigeria’s new President, United Kingdom
has openly declared its readiness to work closely with
Nigeria to end its security and economic challenges. To
start with, Britain says it is going to spearhead the
group of seven developed nations (G-7 nations) to rally
necessary support for Buhari to crush insurgency in
Nigeria without further delay.
British Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond,
announced the new posture of his country towards
Nigeria while speaking with Vanguard in Abuja on
Friday shortly after attending Buhari’s inauguration
as Nigeria’s 5th civilian president.
Hammond led British delegation to witness the
swearing in of Buhari, who only returned to Nigeria
on the eve of his inauguration, where he had gone to
rub minds with Prime Minister, David Cameron, at
Number 10 Downing Street.
The foreign secretary said that apart from discussing
Boko Haram challenges in G7 meeting coming up
later, Britain was ready to provide the Nigerian
armed forces with needed technical and surveillance
equipment and training to be able to combat the menace
of insurgency.
According to him, it is imperative that Boko Haram
must be crushed in order to give the new administration
the opportunity to settle down and tackle the economic
development of Nigeria and give succour to the
citizens.
Hammond said: “The emergence of Buhari has given
us a new opportunity to help Nigeria with both
technical and surveillance support to tackle the problems
of Boko Haram. “But we can only do that if the
Nigerian armed forces comply with human rights
requirements. Happily BUhari has given us that
assurance and we are going to help Nigeria in any
way possible to tackle its problems.
The foreign secretary announced that with Nigeria/
British trade volume peaking at £7 billion per year,
Britain was ready to drive more investments into
Nigeria to help boost its economy and stabilise the
country, using Nigerian businessmen in the UK as the
vehicle. Hammond said that Britain was excited about
what he called “Buhari’s realistic agenda” to tackle the
economic and socio-economic challenges so as to give
hope to the masses.
Saturday Vanguard learnt that the dispatch of
Hammond by David Cameron to attend Buhari’s
inauguration marked the beginning of fresh level of
cooperation between Nigeria and Britain in recent
years. The relationship between the two countries hit
the rocks following the alleged refusal by the European
nation to sell military hardwares to Nigeria to tackle
insurgency on the allegation that Nigerian troops could
use them to commit human rights abuses.
Before Hammond’s visit on Thursday, the last British
Foreign Secretary to visit Nigeria was Jack Straw
about nine years ago.
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