It is an absolute and genuine pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. My thanks go, as ever, to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate. I will echo much of what he said.

Nigeria is an important partner for the UK. We have such vibrant connections through our diaspora communities, thriving trade and cultural links. We have a clear, common interest in reducing insecurity across the Sahel and west Africa, and in supporting democracy in a region where military coups have sadly become frequent. As we heard in the debate last June, the days when religious violence was largely about Boko Haram and concentrated in the north-east are long gone. Violence and kidnappings connected to religious and ethnic differences are now common in the north-west, the middle belt and parts of south Nigeria too.

Much of that violence is utterly horrific, including the attack on St Francis Catholic Church in Ondo state. Today we remember the victims of that terrorist atrocity: 41 innocents killed during a Pentecost mass. We express again our solidarity with the people of Nigeria for those

terrible losses. The fact that the church was filled with worshippers again on Easter Sunday demonstrates the inspiring resilience of that community. So many communities right across Nigeria are showing that same resilience, and a true commitment to peace and working together across differences.

Reports suggest that increased activity by Nigeria’s security forces in the run-up to the elections led to a decrease in killings and kidnappings, but clearly the violence has not stopped. Just two weeks ago, on 5 April, at least 46 people were killed in conflict between farming and herding communities in Benue state in the south-east. Many attacks by armed groups are accompanied by mass kidnappings for ransom, with hostages subjected to horrific brutality. Villages are emptied as people flee, putting even more humanitarian pressure on a country where over 3.1 million people are displaced already.

Some of the violence is clearly targeted at Christians, while in other cases the motivation is less clear. It could be financial gain from ransoms, land seizure, revenge or a political dispute. Many victims of violence by armed groups in Nigeria are Muslim and from many ethnic groups. It is a really complex picture. We must be careful, because generalisations could fuel dangerous narratives about a religious war. As we all know, that can only play into the hands of extremists.

In last year’s debate, I made it clear that greater priority and a change in focus is needed for our security partnerships with Nigeria. We need to better complement efforts to provide security to communities across the country, and our partnership needs to work in harmony with regional efforts to tackle the cross-border drivers of insecurity in Nigeria. We need to understand how interlinked security problems have been growing across the wider region, which means the Sahel and, increasingly, other coastal west African states, including our Commonwealth siblings Ghana and Togo, as well as Côte d’Ivoire and Benin. Without concerted action, insecurity may increase further, so I hope that the Minister can tell us today about the work being done across those borders. What are we doing to tackle the supply of weapons to armed groups? How are we supporting peacebuilding between pastoralist and agricultural communities? I would be grateful to know what progress the Minister thinks is being made on the Accra initiative, and whether she knows of any discussions about future Nigerian involvement in the initiative.