A cross-party early morning motion has been filed today in the House of Commons urging the British government to aid Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s government in securing the freedom of 200 girls kidnapped from a boarding school in Borno State by the Islamist terror group Boko Haram.
Presented by former Labour Cabinet Minister, Harriet Harmon, the motion was signed by Conservative MP the Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell the Secretary of State for International Development, four Labour MPs, Diane Abbott, Alison McGovern, and John Robertson, along with Liberal Democrats MP Sarah Teather. The resolution seeks the safe return of the girls but stops short of condemning by name the perpetrators of the crime.
The motion asks:
That this House deplores the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borneo (sic) State, north-eastern Nigeria on 14 April 2014; fears for their safety; welcomes the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs’ condemnation of the attack on 16 April 2014; calls on the Government to support and encourage the efforts of the Nigerian authorities to locate the schoolgirls and bring about their safe return and to seek the engagement of the UN Women’s Agency in support of the schoolgirls; and expresses solidarity and support for the right of every girl to receive an education.
On 1 May 2014 the newly elected Archbishop of Enugu, the Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, urged President Jonathan to redeploy police and military forces north to fight Boko Haram. The archbishop, who came to world attention during the 1998 Lambeth Conference when he attempted to exorcise the demon of homosexuality from the leader of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement the Rev. Richard Kirker, told the congregation of the Cathedral Church of the Good Sheppard in Enugu that he had told the president that sending North members of the security services who were themselves from the North
“I’m calling on the Federal Government, particularly the President of this nation to begin right now to send down all northern officers to go and fight Boko Haram in their area, they know the terrain. They should go and fight their brothers and get the place peaceful”, he stated.