Ex-British PM Wants UK Troops In Nigeria

L-R: Permanent Secretary, Rivers Ministry of Commerce, Ms. Kadilo Brown, President, Rivers and Bayelsa Shippers Association, Mr Ofon Udofia and Acting President, Uyo Shippers Association, Mr Anietie Ekpenyong, at the Nigerian Shippers Council awareness seminar on the role of Nigerian Shippers Council as Ports economic regulator in Port Harcourt, recently. Photo: NAN

The United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, has called on his government to send troops to Nigeria to help secure the release of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted on April 14.
Speaking during a debate on Wednesday at the House of Commons, the former British Prime Minister said in view of the possibility that the more than 200 kidnapped girls might have been divided into groups and hidden in separate places, his government should send the UK forces to assist Nigeria’s army.
Brown 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.
“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.