THE United Kingdom (UK) has donated technical, non-lethal military equipment worth £450,000 to the Nigerian Armed Forces.
The amount is worth nearly N1 billion (958.9 million) given the current exchange rate of the Nigerian currency – the naira – to the UK’s pound sterling.
The donation was to further enhance the ongoing partnership between the British military and the Nigerian armed forces and to support Nigeria’s fight against violent extremist organisations.
This was disclosed in a statement signed by the senior communications and public diplomacy officer, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, British High Commission, Atinuke Akande-Alegbe.
According to the statement, the donation complements a new and significant package of courses delivered by the British military.
It added that a team of 20 personnel from the British Army were living and working in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, delivering a course focused on enhancing the critical skills needed for continued operations against violent extremist organisations in the North-East.
The equipment was received by the Joint Task Force North-East (JTF NE) theatre commander, Wahidi Shaibu, at a handover ceremony in Maiduguri.
Speaking at the ceremony, the deputy head of British Defence Staff (West Africa) and commander of British Military Training Teams in Nigeria, Martin Leach, said the equipment marked another development in the strong partnership between the United Kingdom and Nigeria.
“The UK stands with Nigeria in the continued fight against violent extremist organisations in the North-East,” Leach said.
According to the statement, seven further courses will be delivered between October 2024 and February 2025, focusing on training Nigerian Army personnel in the specialist skills required for future operations in the North-East.
It stressed that the UK had personnel attached temporarily to the Theatre Counter-IED Coordination Cell in Maiduguri, working with their Nigerian counterparts to develop intelligence on the terror networks killing civilians and soldiers with IEDs.
The ICIR reported that for more than a decade, the Boko Haram terrorist group has killed thousands of people in multiple attacks in Nigeria. The United Nations documented that millions of Nigerians have been displaced since the conflict started in 2010.
Aside from killings and destruction of properties, the group has been notorious for kidnapping people, including over 1,000 school children, as documented by The ICIR.
A reporter with the ICIR
A Journalist with a niche for quality and a promoter of good governance