Britain kicks against Nigeria's space programme.

Nigeria’s space programme has sparked a huge controversy in an unlikely place: Britain.

Critics there are kicking against what they see as their country’s subsidisation of Nigeria’s space programme, especially for a nation where 70 per cent of people live below the poverty line.

Nigeria’s first astronauts are being trained to join Russian, Chinese or American missions within the next two years under the country’s space programme. It is believed to have already received £300m of the £1.14bn in foreign aid earmarked for it over the five years of the coalition government in the UK.

The aid to Nigeria will increase by 116 per cent under the Coalition from £141million in 2010/11 to £305million in 2014/15. The controversy in Britain followed a comment by Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom who said it was folly to give billions in aid to ‘Bongo Bongo land’.

Prime Minister David Cameron faulted the remarks as offensive and accused Mr Bloom of being guilty of a “stop the world I want to get off“ approach to foreign aid.

Backbench Tory MP Philip Davies said it was “totally unjustifiable and unaffordable” for Britain to give this money to Nigeria, given the scale of its ‘grandiose’ space programme.

“We cannot go around the world saying “don’t worry, we will feed your public for you, while you waste your money on all sorts of other projects”,’ he said.

“We have got to say to these countries “you have got to spend that money on your people where it’s most needed not on some grandiose space programme”. We are against welfare dependency at home but at the same time we are encouraging welfare dependency abroad.”

Mr Bloom who triggered the debate likened sending aid to Africa to treason.

“How we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month, when we’re in this sort of debt, to Bongo Bongo land is completely beyond me,” he argued and claimed that foreign leaders frittered the money away on ‘Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris and Ferraris’.

Some people criticised him for using the term ‘Bongo Bongo land’ but others believe he was right about the building resentment over spiralling foreign aid.

The Mail of London reported that while Department for International Development’s budget is rising by 35 per cent in real terms by 2015 and aid costs are ballooning, spending on the military, the police, border control and care homes is being slashed.

Britain is also spending about £280million a year on aid to India, another country with its own space programme.

Joining in the debate,Jonathan Isaby from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “When budgets are tight both for families and the Government alike, people cannot understand why ministers are sending more and more of our hard-earned cash overseas.

“Taxpayers find it especially unacceptable when their money is sent abroad as aid to developing countries which then somehow find sufficient cash to fund the likes of a space programme.

“It is totally unacceptable that British taxpayers’ money is effectively subsidising Nigeria’s efforts to send an astronaut into space.”

Nigeria’s space programme started in 2003 but its first satellite lost power and disappeared from orbit.

Financial details of the satellite projects have not been made public.

Nigeria currently has three in space, NigComSat-1R, NigeriaSat-2 and Nigeria-Sat X, the first to be constructed by indigenous engineers.

It has also built laboratories for the purpose of producing its own space craft by 2028.

The Director General of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Professor Seidu Mohammed says Nigerian astronauts should be trained and ready for space travel within two years.

“By our road map we are supposed to have astronauts prepared by 2015. Before the end of the year, the recruitment of astronauts will begin so that we have them handy and as soon as we get the nod we can pick from that number,” he said in July.

A spokesman for the Department for International Development said spending aid money in Nigeria would help cut crime and illegal immigration in Britain.

“No UK aid money goes through the Nigerian government,’ she said. ‘Our investment goes into specific health, education and poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria is home to a quarter of the poorest people in Africa, and supporting their development will benefit our own trade and security.”