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Lagos — Nigeria and Russia are to sign a nuclear energy cooperation accord next Wednesday when President Dmitry Medvedev becomes the first Kremlin leader to visit Nigeria, officials said.
A joint venture between Russian oil and gas giant Gasprom and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will also be signed during the one day visit, Nigerian presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said, hailing what he called a "historic" visit by Medvedev.
"It will be the first ever visit by the head of state of the Russian Federation to Nigeria," said Adeniyi.
Adeniyi said the nuclear agreement "is for cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy especially for the purpose of electricity."
Russia and Nigeria signed an agreement on March 18 this year to cooperate in building nuclear reactors in the West African country and jointly explore for uranium.
The protocol "foresees the possibility of bilateral cooperation for the development of Nigeria's nuclear infrastructure" and the "joint exploration and exploitation of uranium deposits," Russia's nuclear energy agency Rosatom said.
Nigeria believes there is "much to gain from closer ties with Russia given its oil and gas industry," the spokesman said.
Russia's envoy to Nigeria, Alexander Polyakov, said Medvedev was invited by President Umaru Yar'Adua following talks on the sidelines of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised powers in Japan last year.
Polyakov said "international issues would be on the agenda but primarily, the visit would be about bilateral cooperation. We would like to give a very strong political impetus to our interraction in different fields.
"First of all in the area of economy and investment awe would aim to bring the Russian /Nigerian partnership to a completely new level. Maybe it can be in strategic partnership," he said.
Polyakov said Gasprom chief executive Alexei Miller was expected to accompany Medvedev on the one-day visit.
"Other potential areas of cooperation will also be discussed, including military and technical cooperation," said the diplomat, who added that there was already "huge" and growing cooperation between the two countries.
Polyakov quoted Nigerian statistics as saying that the volume of bilateral trade went past 1.5 billion dollars last year and was still rising this year despite the economic crisis.
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The hausa/fulani have come up with a new and dangerous political game in the name of nuclear power. To make matter worse, they are teaming up with russia- a country with an appalling dictatoship to build a nuclear reactor. Why do we allow the russians to tap our resouces? The russians sold weapons of mass destruction technology to the communist north korea, they did the same to china, iran, These are countries ruled by dictators. The russian government suppresses freedom of press and arrest it's citizens with dissenting opinion. The russians have been actively involve in the east west division. We have nothing to gain from this communist country. Yar and his folks from the north are only trying to maintain the leadership of the country. We will never allow the north to dominate us. They should go and dominate their cattle. Nigeria is too big to be one. The hausa/fulani should be part of niger or have their own country and be ruled by dictators. It's high time we throw them out. We dont need these jihadist. Russia will never make nigeria another iran. They should keep their nuclear technology. They are not needed in our country. Putin and his stooge should know that we dont like them and dont want to do business with them. To hell.
Whoever is Karl Imom,one would suggest that you go back and learn more about Nigerian political History which unfortunately you may be lacking at this time.The Housa/Fulani collectively, are to be blamed squarely on the on the economic problems facing Nigeria today in the sense that the so called Northerners are not good economic managers and have not been. The record is there to show this fact.It is myopic for someone to claim otherwise.In a civilised society,a CEO of any company takes responsibility if his company fails to make the cut.I hope you're not telling the Nigerian people that they're not civilised enough to see what the so called Northern political gangs have done to our economy todate?However, one may not be fair to blame all our economic doom and gloom enirely on the Northerners but they should be really naive not to be responsible for 95% of the problems as they're the only being able region in Nation that have been shooting themselves into power by force and always suspend the constitution.Please Mr.Imom you may be part of our problem by not been honest and defending wrongs.
Another Ajaokuta in the making. 40 years from now, we will be wondering where the crude oil money went with nothing to show from the Nuclear deal. A nation that could not tap hydro-energy from the abundant Niger River now wants to build nuclear energy in a deal with the cunning Russians in particular. Give me a break. Yar and his Northern kin are merely playing real-politick to play up the East-West rivalry similar to the game Iran and North Korea play to boost their security position and hold on to power while the divided Ibo & Yoruba keep looking at each other with suspicion rather than unite with the Deltans to counter-balance the threat from the Hausa/Fulani's grip on the nation.
for those who criticize this move on the Russian and Nigerian to building a nuclear energy are crazy.we as Nigerian should open our eyes and see the big picture.i think we the citizen of Nigeria have to stop for once and actually help our FG to carry out the vision of our nation. that meant good road,school,electricity.and many other great things the nation needs.u criticize and never speaks out what dose that do for the nation of Nigeria.for Ur information a batter home makes a better neighbour,a better neighbour makes a better community, a better community makes a better nation so. it all start from heme.manner do not fall from heaven at list not any more.we should not sit back and watch. why this guys make the decisions alone, after all is our nation.a voice of a millions speaks louder its almost the sounds of a might rush of water which can not be quite so easily so my fellow Nigerians coming together as one nation to fight for freedom,liberty and justices. is called history that we all can be apart of.thank u and have a bless day
Russia , like any nation is out to grab opportunities for the betterment of the national economy first and foremost. If Nigerian leaders decide to play the fool and flounder the national wealth, Russia will normally welcome them . Ajaokuta was not Russia's failure.The massive corruption and power play between the North and Southern leaders was the reason for the huge cost and ultimate failure of the project. The vision was good for economic take off, the execution was hopeless and fraudlent. Princical actors ought to be in jail for future refrence.
It is mind bogging that this country has array of economists and academia from within, yet developement policies seem exceedingly dum. Ajaokuta and Capital territory of Abuja both revealed how brutal Nigerains can rob their own nation. What about the Nigerian Railway coporation which was contracted to India , the Nigerian Airways which was looted by managers who were trusted with the operation ? Or who in Nigera can claim ignorance to the arrogant and immense wealth of mambers of the Board of Customs and Excise. The country is simply lucky to have such imense amount of wealth such as oil that it can still stand as an economic entity today after such economic babarism by ruthless ledership.
The victim to all of these is the villagers and peasants, the school leavers as the gap between the rich and poor continue to escalate disproptionately.By all standards a government is worth nothing if it can not provide citizens with basic amenities such as clean water and and education within cost
I agree with the suggestion that we're in for another round of Ajaokuta this time in a new name of Nuclear project.
Inequality in western capitalist nations is often attributed to historical reasons , in Nigeria it is only attributed to unbriddled corruption and military indiscipline. We now have hopeless socio- economic devide that will eventually precipitate future calamity as currenly witnessed in the Riverine areas of the nation.
O Nwagwu is a Nigerian Scholar based in Toronto
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