Why Rest of the World Cannot Ignore Nigeria, by Ireland Envoy
Written by OGHOGHO OBAYUWANA
Nigerian Guardian
In the middle ages the patch of land now known as Ireland was called the land of saints and scholars. Many of Nigeria’s and indeed the world’s early missionaries were from Ireland. But Irish ambassadors are seldom seen or heard in the Nigerian mass media. Even though the country’s outgoing envoy to Nigeria, Ambassador Patrick Fay, does not agree with that point of view, the Obong Uforo (chief of prosperity) of Akwa Ibom, nevertheless told Foreign Affairs Editor, OGHOGHO OBAYUWANA in this interview why Foreign Direct Investments from Ireland can be raised, why even with all its challenges, the world cannot afford to Ignore Nigeria and that with the experiences of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Nigeria can learn from the rest of the world in overcoming challenges including the insecurity and terrorism headaches. Excerpts.
Looking at current global politics and economic realities, what does Nigeria mean to Ireland today?
FIRST thing I have to say is, Nigeria has always been very important from the Irish point of view. It was the first Sub-Saharan African embassy that we opened. So that shows that from the beginning, we were at the very heart of things. You had Irish missionaries here for years. Before Nigerian independence and since independence, there has always been a steady stream of Nigerians going to study in Ireland and there seem to have been the biggest number going to study medicine in our colleges of surgeons. In very recent years, in the last couple of years, the Irish government developed what we call the Irish African strategy to develop trade and business links with Africa because the African continent is climbing ahead. Nigeria for example by 2020, it would be one of the top 20 economies in the world. You can’t do business in Africa without doing it with Nigeria. This country has got the biggest economy in Africa and so we have to develop trade links. At the moment I think we export over 300 million Euros worth of goods, most would be foodstuff, to Nigeria and we import just over 200 million worth. We had a number of forums in Dublin, African forums and Nigeria. There were some last year and others are being planned. There was a quite large delegation from Nigeria. As well as that, here has been strong interest by Irish companies who are coming to Nigeria. We had one trade delegation that was here last year in November. Before that, December the previous year, our minister for trade and development, he came out with an Irish trade and development agency, they came out to visit Accra and Lagos to see about developing links. And the minister came back with a full-blown delegation and is interested mainly in education and financial services area. There is another trade delegation planned for around October this year. We are expecting a cabinet reshuffle at home…But the trade delegations have been active in Nigeria…So we are working hard to develop trade links with Nigeria. There have been a couple of links developed in the education sector with schools like Griffith college they have signed a memorandum of understanding with Covenant university in Lagos, about two years ago. More recently the Irish Academy of Publish Relations have commissioned Durban polytechnic to run three of their diploma certificate courses. So that’s another link. They are have agreement with the colleges so that there is capacity building also, so it’s not just about Nigerian students going to Ireland. So that’s roughly where we are at the moment
Tying this up with investments, a number of countries are investing in Nigeria. We have Guinness as the foremost Irish company. Can you catalogue the investments and FDI coming into Nigeria from Ireland?
Guinness would be the biggest Irish company in Nigeria. A British company now runs it. There is a big Irish construction company here. PW, it stands for public works. PW in Nigeria is a subsidiary of an Irish company and this year, PW is celebrating its 40 years in Nigeria. So it will be a good one and they will celebrate that as St Patrick’s Day…This year they also paraded about seven of their staff who had been here since the very beginning and they were given plaques. So it’s a very successful company… there are a number of smaller companies but these two would be the biggest. There is of course a company in Lagos called Nutricima. Its 50 percent owned by a British company-PW Cussons and 50 percent by an Irish company called Clanbear. Its involved in foodstuff. But the opportunities for more investments are almost limitless as you would be able to see.
Lets look at the political side of things. There does not seem to be much on the plate of Irish-Nigerian bilateral relations. There does not seem to be anything going on. There doesn’t seem to be any visibility…
No, our bilateral is vibrant. In fact our celebration of St Patrick’s Day is one of the best and the biggest that you can have around. Yes, we have not had a lot of political visits. Our minister, he is been in Lagos twice, the plan at the moment is with the visit in October will also take in Abuja…
Why haven’t there been enough political visits?
Well, until the Irish-Africa Strategy, which is only about 18 months, -two years old, until that, we did not seriously look at Africa from a point of view of a trade continent. And that’s not just Nigeria, we looked very little at Africa from the point of view of developing business and trade and the Africa Strategy has brought about a total rethink of our relationship with Africa. Not just Nigeria but all of Africa. Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa so it obviously gets a priority. But the chairman of our foreign affairs committee, he was out here last November He was speaking at a conference here in Abuja. Our former prime minister, he has been here once before I arrived and after six months upon my arrival. Our former president Marie Robinson she was here in Lagos twice. She spoke at conferences. So there has been a certain movement and some amount of exchanges. Former ministers of environment and some others… we have had a number of visits. Not as much as we would like but we are building on this… And then we have a very vibrant Nigerian community in Ireland… And I was surprised myself to find there are up to 20, 25,000 of them. And the new ambassador (Ketebu) is talking of about 42,000. It’s grown. It’s a very vibrant one. Our minister, he has met these Nigerians in Diaspora quite a number of times and one of the wonderful things that we have seen is that they are very keen at building the kind of healthy business and trade relations that should exist between our countries. They want to be part of that. My successor, our new ambassador, he is the guy who developed the Africa Strategy…he has worked closely with the ambassador and the others in Dublin…So he was here some weeks ago to discuss the Boko Haram issue among others, working closely with relevant stakeholders in this regard. Nigerians in the Diaspora are very keen in developing trade relations with Nigeria. It’s the same when you know that Ireland has also been very keen in doing it. Bringing about development with the Diaspora support. You have a whole stream of different associations of all the major tribes, I know for example that the Igbos have a very strong association because there was, one of the president’s advisers was an Igbo. And people, personalities are invited for the Igbo annual meeting in Ireland. There is also a very strong Yoruba association. So one of the things Felix (ambassador Yusufu Pwol) tried to do was to engage the whole string of the different associations, to bring them together into one big Nigerian group.
When you look at the potentials that exist in Nigeria. How can we really situate Nigeria in this Irish-Africa strategy that you are speaking about? How does Nigeria play in this? How can Nigeria take advantage of it?
When the trade mission came out for example back in November, what we did on the financial services side, we had invited all the top anchors…at the time the Governor of the Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi, he was made to co-host and his deputy was involved in the breakfast meeting. We had people from the top levels. There were Irish companies and the financial services, there was an agreement signed by Diamond bank and some Irish company. So they were trying to see how we could establish relationships. In the educational sector, there were a number of understandings and agreements signed. What we are trying to do is not just to come in and export business to Nigeria. We are trying to work with Nigerian companies as we have been doing in the educational sector, which is not just about coming to grab Nigerian students to come study in Ireland. Yes, that’s part of it but there is also work with the schools to develop partnership with those schools so that there is something in it for both sides. That’s why I gave the example of Durban polytechnic…and we worked with Felix (ambassador Pwol, envoy until June this year) in this regard.
The human side of our relations, all of the 45, 000 Nigerians, that’s a critical mass. How do we unleash their power as Ireland has done in the time past? And how are you coping with consular problems that occur as we had the other time when a Nigerian died in an Irish jail forcing a comment from the National Assembly. What should be the Ideal situation?
We are aware of some cases…consular issues would normally be handled by the Nigerian embassy in Dublin…and you know the fact that there are allegations does not make them true. And we grant foreign citizens their fundamental rights as we expect host governments to do to our citizens whom we tell always that If you have broken the law don’t expect us to get you off, and I assume its the same, Nigerians in Dublin don’t expect to break the law and not get to face police action.
But how are you cooperating with the Nigerian authorities to ensure that things are smoother and all of that? I mean if someone has broken the law, and we are looking at extradition for instance, do you have any cooperation with the Nigerian government in this regard?
Yes, we do have, we have a repatriation arrangement with Nigeria and some other countries… we have always been concerned about citizens who would do certain things that bring disrepute to their country. There has been a good relationship between the Irish authorities in Dublin and the Nigerian embassy, you will always have complains…we’ve got a few here. It’s the same message coming from both sides. We have about 300 Irish citizens in Nigeria. With the kind of numbers you have in Ireland, there would certainly be consular problems.
There is a feeling which indicates that there are certain corrosives in our administrative set up or social malaise that currently acts as impediments to taking the Irish-Nigerian relations to a higher level? Have you recognised these?
One of the problems is the Image that Nigeria has. For example, some lawyer I know in Lagos, a Nigerian lawyer, he leads a trade delegation abroad, trying to get people to come and do business in Nigeria and I was asking what’s the problem he faces most and he told me its Image. Remember your Foreign Minister at a time, Barrister Ajumogobia also made this profound statement. I have actually heard him make it twice at two different functions. And it is that ‘the biggest victims of the Nigerian scams aren’t the people scammed but the honest, hardworking Nigerians who are tarred with the same brush. It’s true and the lawyer was making the same point to me and I said to him, when I came first, I spoke to all the Irish business people who were in Abuja and most of them that I met in Lagos and I ask them all, ‘if you are starting again and you knew all you know of Nigeria, will you come to Nigeria? And every single one of them said yes’ Ok, there are challenges but the potential is enormous. So the image is something that can put some people off but once you get beyond this and… and then the other problem now is this insecurity and we can really appreciate that because as you know there were problems in Ireland with the IRA. The terrorists were not everywhere and it’s the same, Nigeria is a massive country. Boko Haram is not in everyplace. We have our cooperation with the government of Nigeria in this regard, sharing experiences and so on. It’s something that has to be explained. It’s not that Boko Haram is everywhere. So security is an issue now. For the scams unfortunately, it’s the image. I agree with Minister Ajumogobia that people are just tarred with the same brush. Now by having this forum in Dublin, we’ve had a couple, Irish businesses meeting to discuss whatever opportunities that you have in Africa, when… I was at home in January, the Irish geographic society. They were having a forum on Africa and although I was on leave, and I had people, different kinds of business people who had been to Africa, who could come in and talk other companies. We were thinking of coming to Africa and its amazing that the never looked at Africa before. First you look at Nigeria 160, 170 million people. And that’s growing every year. You can’t ignore it. It’s the biggest country in Africa and in the next 20, 50 years you would have passed America in terms of population. That’s the feeling that we have and by 2020 or 2030, it would be one of the top twenty economies in the world. You can’t ignore it and Irish businesses are expressing an interest in it… The Irish trade agency, but it is not actually the government agency, it’s the client membership and they are actually surprised at the level of interest by members. So we have another trade delegation coming in October…Education and finical services are two of our biggest sectors. ICT too is our biggest sectors. So we have one of the tops in the world, of ITs and software. Trying to develop trade…
What is your vision of Nigerian-Irish relations in the future?
The organised forum at home, they were all surprised at the number and quality of people whom turned up to attend. There was one particular forum totally devoted to Nigeria and Ghana. And it was extremely well attended. In the last twelve months or so a number of states, there have been high delegation to Ireland. I think the Delta State Governor was given an award. So he was at home with the delegation. In the end, he couldn’t attend it because he has a meeting and late meetings with president. So there is a big interest in Ireland at the moment… So I will see it developing into much closer relations. Businesses, I would see it. First of all trade will increase and there will be more linkages between the Irish and the Nigerian businesses because as I said its not just export for the moment going into Nigeria its also trying to link up with Nigerian companies so that they can move on together.
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| Women demonstrating for peace in Nigeria. |
Nigerian Guardian
In the middle ages the patch of land now known as Ireland was called the land of saints and scholars. Many of Nigeria’s and indeed the world’s early missionaries were from Ireland. But Irish ambassadors are seldom seen or heard in the Nigerian mass media. Even though the country’s outgoing envoy to Nigeria, Ambassador Patrick Fay, does not agree with that point of view, the Obong Uforo (chief of prosperity) of Akwa Ibom, nevertheless told Foreign Affairs Editor, OGHOGHO OBAYUWANA in this interview why Foreign Direct Investments from Ireland can be raised, why even with all its challenges, the world cannot afford to Ignore Nigeria and that with the experiences of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Nigeria can learn from the rest of the world in overcoming challenges including the insecurity and terrorism headaches. Excerpts.
Looking at current global politics and economic realities, what does Nigeria mean to Ireland today?
FIRST thing I have to say is, Nigeria has always been very important from the Irish point of view. It was the first Sub-Saharan African embassy that we opened. So that shows that from the beginning, we were at the very heart of things. You had Irish missionaries here for years. Before Nigerian independence and since independence, there has always been a steady stream of Nigerians going to study in Ireland and there seem to have been the biggest number going to study medicine in our colleges of surgeons. In very recent years, in the last couple of years, the Irish government developed what we call the Irish African strategy to develop trade and business links with Africa because the African continent is climbing ahead. Nigeria for example by 2020, it would be one of the top 20 economies in the world. You can’t do business in Africa without doing it with Nigeria. This country has got the biggest economy in Africa and so we have to develop trade links. At the moment I think we export over 300 million Euros worth of goods, most would be foodstuff, to Nigeria and we import just over 200 million worth. We had a number of forums in Dublin, African forums and Nigeria. There were some last year and others are being planned. There was a quite large delegation from Nigeria. As well as that, here has been strong interest by Irish companies who are coming to Nigeria. We had one trade delegation that was here last year in November. Before that, December the previous year, our minister for trade and development, he came out with an Irish trade and development agency, they came out to visit Accra and Lagos to see about developing links. And the minister came back with a full-blown delegation and is interested mainly in education and financial services area. There is another trade delegation planned for around October this year. We are expecting a cabinet reshuffle at home…But the trade delegations have been active in Nigeria…So we are working hard to develop trade links with Nigeria. There have been a couple of links developed in the education sector with schools like Griffith college they have signed a memorandum of understanding with Covenant university in Lagos, about two years ago. More recently the Irish Academy of Publish Relations have commissioned Durban polytechnic to run three of their diploma certificate courses. So that’s another link. They are have agreement with the colleges so that there is capacity building also, so it’s not just about Nigerian students going to Ireland. So that’s roughly where we are at the moment
Tying this up with investments, a number of countries are investing in Nigeria. We have Guinness as the foremost Irish company. Can you catalogue the investments and FDI coming into Nigeria from Ireland?
Guinness would be the biggest Irish company in Nigeria. A British company now runs it. There is a big Irish construction company here. PW, it stands for public works. PW in Nigeria is a subsidiary of an Irish company and this year, PW is celebrating its 40 years in Nigeria. So it will be a good one and they will celebrate that as St Patrick’s Day…This year they also paraded about seven of their staff who had been here since the very beginning and they were given plaques. So it’s a very successful company… there are a number of smaller companies but these two would be the biggest. There is of course a company in Lagos called Nutricima. Its 50 percent owned by a British company-PW Cussons and 50 percent by an Irish company called Clanbear. Its involved in foodstuff. But the opportunities for more investments are almost limitless as you would be able to see.
Lets look at the political side of things. There does not seem to be much on the plate of Irish-Nigerian bilateral relations. There does not seem to be anything going on. There doesn’t seem to be any visibility…
No, our bilateral is vibrant. In fact our celebration of St Patrick’s Day is one of the best and the biggest that you can have around. Yes, we have not had a lot of political visits. Our minister, he is been in Lagos twice, the plan at the moment is with the visit in October will also take in Abuja…
Why haven’t there been enough political visits?
Well, until the Irish-Africa Strategy, which is only about 18 months, -two years old, until that, we did not seriously look at Africa from a point of view of a trade continent. And that’s not just Nigeria, we looked very little at Africa from the point of view of developing business and trade and the Africa Strategy has brought about a total rethink of our relationship with Africa. Not just Nigeria but all of Africa. Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa so it obviously gets a priority. But the chairman of our foreign affairs committee, he was out here last November He was speaking at a conference here in Abuja. Our former prime minister, he has been here once before I arrived and after six months upon my arrival. Our former president Marie Robinson she was here in Lagos twice. She spoke at conferences. So there has been a certain movement and some amount of exchanges. Former ministers of environment and some others… we have had a number of visits. Not as much as we would like but we are building on this… And then we have a very vibrant Nigerian community in Ireland… And I was surprised myself to find there are up to 20, 25,000 of them. And the new ambassador (Ketebu) is talking of about 42,000. It’s grown. It’s a very vibrant one. Our minister, he has met these Nigerians in Diaspora quite a number of times and one of the wonderful things that we have seen is that they are very keen at building the kind of healthy business and trade relations that should exist between our countries. They want to be part of that. My successor, our new ambassador, he is the guy who developed the Africa Strategy…he has worked closely with the ambassador and the others in Dublin…So he was here some weeks ago to discuss the Boko Haram issue among others, working closely with relevant stakeholders in this regard. Nigerians in the Diaspora are very keen in developing trade relations with Nigeria. It’s the same when you know that Ireland has also been very keen in doing it. Bringing about development with the Diaspora support. You have a whole stream of different associations of all the major tribes, I know for example that the Igbos have a very strong association because there was, one of the president’s advisers was an Igbo. And people, personalities are invited for the Igbo annual meeting in Ireland. There is also a very strong Yoruba association. So one of the things Felix (ambassador Yusufu Pwol) tried to do was to engage the whole string of the different associations, to bring them together into one big Nigerian group.
When you look at the potentials that exist in Nigeria. How can we really situate Nigeria in this Irish-Africa strategy that you are speaking about? How does Nigeria play in this? How can Nigeria take advantage of it?
When the trade mission came out for example back in November, what we did on the financial services side, we had invited all the top anchors…at the time the Governor of the Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi, he was made to co-host and his deputy was involved in the breakfast meeting. We had people from the top levels. There were Irish companies and the financial services, there was an agreement signed by Diamond bank and some Irish company. So they were trying to see how we could establish relationships. In the educational sector, there were a number of understandings and agreements signed. What we are trying to do is not just to come in and export business to Nigeria. We are trying to work with Nigerian companies as we have been doing in the educational sector, which is not just about coming to grab Nigerian students to come study in Ireland. Yes, that’s part of it but there is also work with the schools to develop partnership with those schools so that there is something in it for both sides. That’s why I gave the example of Durban polytechnic…and we worked with Felix (ambassador Pwol, envoy until June this year) in this regard.
The human side of our relations, all of the 45, 000 Nigerians, that’s a critical mass. How do we unleash their power as Ireland has done in the time past? And how are you coping with consular problems that occur as we had the other time when a Nigerian died in an Irish jail forcing a comment from the National Assembly. What should be the Ideal situation?
We are aware of some cases…consular issues would normally be handled by the Nigerian embassy in Dublin…and you know the fact that there are allegations does not make them true. And we grant foreign citizens their fundamental rights as we expect host governments to do to our citizens whom we tell always that If you have broken the law don’t expect us to get you off, and I assume its the same, Nigerians in Dublin don’t expect to break the law and not get to face police action.
But how are you cooperating with the Nigerian authorities to ensure that things are smoother and all of that? I mean if someone has broken the law, and we are looking at extradition for instance, do you have any cooperation with the Nigerian government in this regard?
Yes, we do have, we have a repatriation arrangement with Nigeria and some other countries… we have always been concerned about citizens who would do certain things that bring disrepute to their country. There has been a good relationship between the Irish authorities in Dublin and the Nigerian embassy, you will always have complains…we’ve got a few here. It’s the same message coming from both sides. We have about 300 Irish citizens in Nigeria. With the kind of numbers you have in Ireland, there would certainly be consular problems.
There is a feeling which indicates that there are certain corrosives in our administrative set up or social malaise that currently acts as impediments to taking the Irish-Nigerian relations to a higher level? Have you recognised these?
One of the problems is the Image that Nigeria has. For example, some lawyer I know in Lagos, a Nigerian lawyer, he leads a trade delegation abroad, trying to get people to come and do business in Nigeria and I was asking what’s the problem he faces most and he told me its Image. Remember your Foreign Minister at a time, Barrister Ajumogobia also made this profound statement. I have actually heard him make it twice at two different functions. And it is that ‘the biggest victims of the Nigerian scams aren’t the people scammed but the honest, hardworking Nigerians who are tarred with the same brush. It’s true and the lawyer was making the same point to me and I said to him, when I came first, I spoke to all the Irish business people who were in Abuja and most of them that I met in Lagos and I ask them all, ‘if you are starting again and you knew all you know of Nigeria, will you come to Nigeria? And every single one of them said yes’ Ok, there are challenges but the potential is enormous. So the image is something that can put some people off but once you get beyond this and… and then the other problem now is this insecurity and we can really appreciate that because as you know there were problems in Ireland with the IRA. The terrorists were not everywhere and it’s the same, Nigeria is a massive country. Boko Haram is not in everyplace. We have our cooperation with the government of Nigeria in this regard, sharing experiences and so on. It’s something that has to be explained. It’s not that Boko Haram is everywhere. So security is an issue now. For the scams unfortunately, it’s the image. I agree with Minister Ajumogobia that people are just tarred with the same brush. Now by having this forum in Dublin, we’ve had a couple, Irish businesses meeting to discuss whatever opportunities that you have in Africa, when… I was at home in January, the Irish geographic society. They were having a forum on Africa and although I was on leave, and I had people, different kinds of business people who had been to Africa, who could come in and talk other companies. We were thinking of coming to Africa and its amazing that the never looked at Africa before. First you look at Nigeria 160, 170 million people. And that’s growing every year. You can’t ignore it. It’s the biggest country in Africa and in the next 20, 50 years you would have passed America in terms of population. That’s the feeling that we have and by 2020 or 2030, it would be one of the top twenty economies in the world. You can’t ignore it and Irish businesses are expressing an interest in it… The Irish trade agency, but it is not actually the government agency, it’s the client membership and they are actually surprised at the level of interest by members. So we have another trade delegation coming in October…Education and finical services are two of our biggest sectors. ICT too is our biggest sectors. So we have one of the tops in the world, of ITs and software. Trying to develop trade…
What is your vision of Nigerian-Irish relations in the future?
The organised forum at home, they were all surprised at the number and quality of people whom turned up to attend. There was one particular forum totally devoted to Nigeria and Ghana. And it was extremely well attended. In the last twelve months or so a number of states, there have been high delegation to Ireland. I think the Delta State Governor was given an award. So he was at home with the delegation. In the end, he couldn’t attend it because he has a meeting and late meetings with president. So there is a big interest in Ireland at the moment… So I will see it developing into much closer relations. Businesses, I would see it. First of all trade will increase and there will be more linkages between the Irish and the Nigerian businesses because as I said its not just export for the moment going into Nigeria its also trying to link up with Nigerian companies so that they can move on together.
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