The British Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said Britain was considering stepping up its military efforts to help the Nigerian government defeat Boko Haram, the Guardian UK reports according to punchng.com.
Hunt, who said this after a visit to Maiduguri, Nigeria said that he would be discussing what the British government could do in terms of aid and military support to combat the terrorist group, warning that the crisis had the potential to trigger a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of that in Yemen.
The Guardian reports that Britain had provided £240m in aid to Nigeria, of which £100m went to the North-East, making it the second-largest donor after the US and giving the UK a sizeable stake in what happens in the region.
Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa have terrorised the region for several years, but their activities came to the world’s attention when hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped in 2014.
British military personnel in Abuja and the wider region are giving strategic advice to Nigerian forces on how to run counterinsurgency operations, with their advice focused on combining humanitarian and military activities.
Speaking on a visit to Maiduguri as part of a week-long trip to Africa, Hunt said, “It has got all the hallmarks of something that if you do not nip in the bud, it will get a lot worse. Conversely, it feels like a situation that it is something that could be dealt with if there was appropriate action by the government of Nigeria with international support.
“There is a potential solution here … Nigeria is a huge country and it is much stretched.”
Asked if he supported an increase in military action in the region, the UK foreign secretary said, “I think the crucial deciding factor is the willingness and enthusiasm of the Nigerian government and the Nigerian army to work closely with us – we would like to support and help them, but they are a sovereign nation and they have got to want our help.”
He said Britain wanted to bring holistic solutions, suggesting by implication that the Nigerian army has focused too heavily on military solutions. “I think our approach is potentially a very significant one because we could bring not just the British army but also DfID (Department for International Development) and our experience in holistic solutions to this kind of situations.
“This is a region of Africa that is being massively destabilised by conflict. These things can escalate quite quickly and get out of control. We know from Sri Lanka that Daesh (ISIS) are looking to make their presence felt now they have lost their territory. We have to be vigilant.
“The feedback I got from NGOs on the ground is that lack of trust between the authorities and local people is one of the things that are fuelling the problem at the moment. The Nigerian army strategy is largely about herding people into towns and saying if you are not in a secure area, we are going to assume you are Boko Haram and/or Islamic State West Africa.”
