Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I apologise, as I had to leave to attend another meeting, but I did hear part of the ambassador’s presentation. I welcome her and thank her for coming.

I am probably echoing the concerns raised by other speakers about what has been going on in Nigeria for some time. Reference has been made to the massacres, the transgender issue, which was mentioned by Senator Mullins, and the abduction and disappearance of the 200 schoolgirls. It is incomprehensible to us what is happening in Nigeria and how a government can appear to be so uninterested in the issue of the disappearance, for example, because I am particularly interested in it. It has been suggested that the government is complicit with Boko Haram. I do not know whether that is true, but to the outside world it seems to be uninterested in the fate of the girls. We read in the newspaper that the girls are probably married off by now, as if that did not matter. The implication is that it is time to forget about it, the damage has been done and there is no need to bother about where the girls are. I use the case as an example of our incomprehension of what is going on in Nigeria.

The prime responsibility of a government is to protect its own people, and the government is not doing that in Nigeria. It is not protecting its borders, which is also a prime function of the government. The Nigerian Government is allowing cross-border activity, which is having a huge impact on the people of Nigeria. I am sure the witnesses know all this. I am not telling them something that is news to them. What is going on is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening in conditions which contribute towards the rise of insurgency. Insurgency does not happen for no reason. There is a culture of corruption. There is no other word for it. Most people accept that that is the case in Nigeria.

What is the present Government or any new Government promising that will change the conditions in Nigeria to the benefit of the ordinary Nigerian people? What is being promised that will offer them protection for the future or that will improve governance to ensure the conditions are not conducive to the rise of organisations such as Boko Haram?