The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, has said the UK government informed its Nigerian counterpart on the terror alert it declared on Abuja recently.
Speaking at the NAN Forum in Abuja on Sunday, Laing said the British government also notified the Nigerian authorities of the travel advice it issued to its citizens in Abuja.
Recall that the Federal Government had berated its UK counterpart over the terror alert and the travel advice it issued to its citizens, saying that the action was unnecessary.
Disagreeing with the Nigerian government, Laing said the terror alert and travel advice were for the British citizens living in Nigeria and other nationals who need the information.
She contended that the terror alert and travel advice were in line with the United Kingdom government’s security defence partnership and support to Nigeria and Africa.
The envoy, therefore, stated that it is the responsibility of the UK government to alert its nationals if there is any security threat in Nigeria or any other country.
She said: “But we have a responsibility to our citizens to alert them if we are concerned about a security threat. But, of course, that advice is available to everybody, anyone can sign up for a travel alert from us.
“So, you have travel advice, everyone has to travel advice and so we talked carefully to the government of Nigeria but we also have to alert our citizens and, indeed, anyone who wants to read.
“The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, has been green all the time until we were made aware of the specific security in Abuja and we have now reverted back to green. But the particular threat we were worried about we are confident has been managed.
“It is obviously for the Nigerian government to lead on this, the various agencies are working incredibly hard to pick up intelligence to process and to follow the leads.
“Our job as the UK is to support Nigeria, and we have a security defence partnership with Nigeria, which has many, many different aspects.
“One of the aspects is support for counterterrorism. So we do military training, for example, on counter explosives, to how your soldiers can spot the explosives and dismantle it if they see one.
“So, we are here to support, but it is obviously for the Nigerian government and the military to lead on security.”
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