Scrap aid to Nigeria until Christians are safe

Aug 4, 2020 by

by Kathy Gyngell, The Conservative Woman:

BRITAIN’S foreign aid programme, as we’ve written before in these pages, is riddled with a lack of accountability; its ineffectiveness as a salve for the world’s ills is well-documented. Those who should benefit, as Karen Harradine has argued, rarely do. One example of the ‘breathtaking stupidity’ of the Department for International Aid and Development (DfID) that she cited was its allocation of £190million to Somalia in 2019/20, almost a quarter of which was going to the Somalian government. Never mind that Somalia is number three on Open Doors’ World Watch List of the 50 countries where persecution of Christians is most rife.

Nigeria, which ranks 12th on this list and where the killing is reaching genocide proportions, is also in receipt of British largesse. Although the British Government reportedly halved its budget for Nigeria in 2018 following the Boko Haram atrocities, it remains one of the five biggest recipients of the UK’s bilateral aid.

We are not alone in being deeply concerned about this. The public are too. Following another mass killing of five aid workers by Boko Haram in Nigeria, a fresh poll of UK adults shows widespread public support for foreign aid to be made conditional on measures that would safeguard the human rights of Christians.

The poll, for which 2,044 adults were interviewed, was commissioned by the humanitarian group International Organisation for Peace & Social Justice (PSJ UK). It found that 39 per cent expect the UK to speak out against violence towards Christians in Nigeria and almost half (49 per cent) believe that aid must be targeted on measures that safeguard human rights and that suspending all foreign aid to Nigeria until the persecution of Christians is ended would be effective.

Since the Bishop of Truro’s report on Christian persecution around the world, commissioned by former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, there are some signs that interest in the cause is growing. The All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief recently published a report warning about Nigeria’s genocide of Christians.

The problem is compounded by the very hostile context for on-the-ground media reporting. Reporters Without Borders ranks Nigeria at 120 out of 180 countries for press freedom, just above Afghanistan, and notes its ‘climate of permanent violence’.

Read here

Watch: Persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria (warning: disturbing images)

Related Posts

Tags

Share This