AKIPRESS.COM - Theresa May has signed a security pact with Nigeria’s president aimed at helping the country combat the militant group Boko Haram through better military training and anti-terrorist propaganda techniques developed in the UK, the Guardians reports.

The British prime minister’s agreement with Muhammadu Buhari was announced at a summit between the pair in Abuja and billed by the UK as an example of May’s ambition to promote a greater British presence in Africa and support states under pressure from terrorist threats.

“We are determined to work side by side with Nigeria to help them fight terrorism, reduce conflict and lay the foundations for the future stability and prosperity that will benefit us all,” she said.

Billed as the UK’s first security and defence partnership with Nigeria, the pact was the centrepiece of the second day of May’s three-day trip to Africa, in which she will visit Kenya on Thursday having been to South Africa on Tuesday.

The UK will provide training to the Nigerian military to help it contend with improvised explosive devices used by Boko Haram, and has offered to help train full army units, as opposed to individual soldiers, before they are deployed in the country’s north-east, where the Islamist militant group has its base.

Thursday’s trip to Kenya will see May announce that the UK will build a cybercrime centre in Nairobi to help bring prosecutions against paedophiles in the east African nation.

The day-long visit will include a meeting with the country’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and a press conference.

Kenyan authorities are not able to receive reports of child sexual abuse material from US technology companies because they say the country does not have the secure channels of communication needed. The UK’s National Crime Agency has already worked with Kenya’s anti-human trafficking and child protection unit in several investigations, securing prosecutions in 2015 and 2018 of British men who had sexually abused Kenyan children.