MP for Hackney South Meg Hillier challenges Nigerian counterparts

MP Meg Hillier challenged her counterparts in Nigeria about their salaries on a recent visit to the country.

Ms Hillier who chairs the all party parliamentary group on Nigeria made the trip for which they will launch imminently launch a paper.

“There are lots of challenging issues, we talked to Save the Children about health issues and the millennium goals for malaria,” she said.

“There are still so many challenges yet it’s a very rich country, we did challenge the MPs there about their salaries, they get paid in a month roughly the equivalent of what we get paid in a year, but we weren’t in an environment where we could pin them down, we are trying to do that now,” she added.

Ms Hillier also visited a project that’s paid for by Department for International Development in Niger Estate in the north of the country to get young women to train as teachers, because not having enough women teachers was contributing to young girls not going to school.

They also made a visit to a school where parents have formed a committee to hold the teachers to account, to make sure they turn up and teach properly, and which also challenges children selling things by the roadside why they aren’t at school.

“One of our missions is to remind people about the real Nigeria, not the corruption and the bombings,” she said.