Juliana Taiwo
4 December 2008
Abuja — President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has directed that all outstanding agreements and treaties between the Russian Federation and Nigeria should be signed under the aegis of the Nigeria - Russia Joint Commission.
President Yar'Adua gave the directive after the new Russian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Alexander Polyakov, presented his letters of credence at the State House yesterday.
"We signed a memorandum of understanding earlier in the year, and this should be the beginning of further stronger mutually beneficial relations", he said.
The new Ambassador of the Russian Federation, Mr. Polyakov, had told President Yar'Adua that Russian companies were interested in doing business in Nigeria , especially in the gas sector, and assured the President that he would work hard to achieve more cooperation between the two nations.
A Russian company, Altimo (Alfa Group), a Moscow-based telecommunication investment company had in September expressed interest in investing in M-Tel/NITEL.
Gazprom, a Russian energy company recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Moscow on gas exploration, production and transportation.
Gazprom has increasingly tried to boost its international portfolio, with Africa being marked as a 'priority' by the state-run company.
In a large part, this is designed to bridge potential gap in Russian gas supplies, with Nigeria's estimated 176 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves making it an attractive prospect.
So far, Gazprom has pitched its proposals well to tie in with Yar'Adua's policy objectives, placing greater emphasis on the much needed investments in the domestic energy sector, while downplaying the potential returns it stands to get in terms of access to gas reserves. Moscow had also been careful to make the right noises about using gas for domestic power generation in order to reduce electricity shortages but, needless to say, this could have longer-term implications for export potential should Russia hold true to its word.
On coming into office in May 2007, Yar'Adua had made reform of the Nigerian oil and gas sector a key priority.
At the same ceremony, President Yar'Adua also received letters of credence from Mr. Ler Lingarde of the Kingdom of Sweden and Ms. Angela Colley of The Gambia.
He assured them that bilateral relations would be improved upon between Nigeria and their countries through the strengthening of the Joint Commissions and wished them a successful tenure.
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