Regrettably I was unable to post an update from Nigeria at the start of the month as I intended to and had said that I would. This was due to a lack of Internet and computer access and an accident when I fell and dislocated my shoulder while we were in a town called Kaduna.

Needing medical treatment while we were in Nigeria really brought home to me the importance of basic infrastructure like safe roads and hospitals. It was about a 3 hour drive from Kaduna to the British High Commission clinic where I could get medication and we could only undertake this the following morning because of the risk of being hijacked by bandits on the road at night. 

Unfortunately my shoulder wasn’t fully dealt with until I got back to the UK so it was a painful experience. But really, I was one of the lucky ones in being seen to, having means of transport and getting medication. For most Nigerians this would not have been the case and this is precisely why the All Party Group of MPs which I chair was visiting the country: to learn about the problems, to see the progress being made and to find out what more can be done and how the UK and international community can help. It is because these basic things are so essential that we should do all we can to help.

As the 11th largest producer of oil in the world and the UK’s second largest market in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is a hugely important country. But despite this it has huge problems with more than half of its population living on less than a dollar a day (about 65 pence), life expectancy below 47 years and one in five children dying before the age of 5.

The group met a number of people to discuss issues like these including an economics professor and former presidential candidate Pat Utomi, a civic rights organisation providing free legal facilities, a group conducting research into sustainable foods, the head of the corruption commission and politicians in the capital city, along with many others.

There are two meetings in particular I wanted to mention. Firstly we met with a church based organisation in Ibadan who were campaigning to stop the practice of ‘female circumcision’ – genital mutilation – which may have been carried out on more than half of the female population. It causes incomprehensible pain and health problems, and the images we saw showed how torturous this is and will stay with me for a long time. We all left with great respect for the volunteers, who have been threatened with ‘juju’ or ‘black magic’ because of their work, and took their message to politicians we met in government.

The second meeting was with two groups from Jos, where rioting had broken out on the eve of our visit and hundreds of people had lost their lives and thousands had been displaced. The riots seem to have been sparked by fears of electoral fraud which exacerbated religious and ethnic tensions grounded in unrealised or unequal human rights. We met with representatives from both a Christian group and a Muslim group for a roundtable discussion on the situation in Jos. They had not met before, and travelled all the way from Jos to Kaduna (over 100 miles) to speak with us; both condemned the riots and were keen to work together to stop similar events in the future.

It is difficult to say what difference the visit will make. Because the problems are on such a large scale it is easy to become downbeat about progress, as many people we met were. But I came away feeling that with these two meetings something had been achieved while we were there and I still feel inspired by some of the work that people are doing in the country.

We will publish a full report on the visit in the New Year which will go to key decision makers in both Nigeria and the UK. I will make a copy of it available on the website then.