Nigeria: President Tinubu - One Year of Forging Strategic Partnerships

20 December 2024
Premium Times (Abuja)
By Fredrick Nwabufo

It is important to understand that there is a meticulous process to bilateral agreements. They are a crucial step and the foundation for fruitful relations across a pool of sectors, especially with commitment between the parties.

Today, the world is paying keen attention to Nigeria for very good reasons. Our global profile is coruscating, and our stature as Africa's most important country is buoying up. The President is restoring Nigeria's global esteem with his visionary leadership at home and strategic engagements abroad.

An eloquent aspect of leadership is branding. Leadership embodies, sufficiently, marketing and public relations, shaping perception, behaviour, and thoughts. President Bola Tinubu is Nigeria's chief salesman, and he has been doing a great job at it with consistent messaging on Nigeria as an investors' paradise and the nation's youth as its greatest asset.

Everywhere the President goes, he preaches Nigeria, the good of the land and its people, with finality and a surfeit of pride. It has been one year of proselytising and forging strategic partnerships.

There have been questions over the significance of the President's trips in the past one year. Inasmuch as these concerns are well within the rights of citizens, it is important to emphasise that these trips have not only been bounteous in terms of economic gains but also in the prism of goodwill, in the promotion of the nation's interest, and in the forging of strategic partnerships.

In an ever evolving world, today's and tomorrow's leaders must seek thoroughfares for collaboration and ways to deepen cooperation with other nations. Isolationism is not a fancy recourse in the 21st century.

President Tinubu, in his accustomed statesman enouncements, emphasises collaboration and inclusiveness as critical ingredients to achieving global food security, addressing collective challenges, and driving innovation across a chain of interests for a more stable and prosperous Africa and the world.

Today, the world is paying keen attention to Nigeria for very good reasons. Our global profile is coruscating, and our stature as Africa's most important country is buoying up. The President is restoring Nigeria's global esteem with his visionary leadership at home and strategic engagements abroad.

In the year under review, the President and Nigeria have been honoured with the full complement of a state visit in a number of countries, including China, France, and Equatorial Guinea. Nigeria has also received global leaders, such as the Indian Prime Minister, the President of Germany, and the German Chancellor.

Here is a brief sectoral view of some outcomes of Nigeria's "economic diplomacy" so far.

Gas/Energy

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed a $500 million renewable energy and gas deal with Germany (21 November, 2023);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed a Memorandum of Understanding on energy cooperation with Saudi Arabia (10 November, 2023);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with Russia on nuclear energy (27 September, 2023);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with India on renewable energy (23/ January, 2024);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with China on the development of a floating liquified natural gas project in Nigeria (6 December, 2023);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with two key collaborators, Solarge BV of the Netherlands and the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank for the establishment of a 1GW solar PV manufacturing plant in Nigeria (6 December, 2024).

Infrastructure

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with China on the provision of infrastructure worth about $2 billion infrastructure (20 October, 2023);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with China to develop and establish a $150 million lithium-ion battery manufacturing and processing factory in Nigeria (9 December, 2023).

Sports

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with the State of Qatar on cooperation in the fields of youth and sports (3 March, 2024).

Education

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with Russia on education (22 December, 2023);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with the State of Qatar on education (3 March, 2024);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with Campus France on joint research and promotion of innovation, training of qualified Nigerian academics in French higher educational institutions, scholars/students' exchanges, and support for the French Language Immersion Programme (4 May, 2023).

Trade/Investment

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with India to boost the trade volume between Nigeria and India (February 2024);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with the State of Qatar on the Establishment of a Joint Business Council (JBC) between the NACCIMA and Qatar Chamber (3 March, 2024);
  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with Lab Four on the provision of 50,000 full-time business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs to Nigeria over the next three years (19 March, 2024).

Migrant Workers Policy

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed an MoU with the State of Qatar on the regulation of the employment of workers from the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the State of Qatar (3 March, 2024).

Information/Technology

  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed an MoU with India on cooperation in the field of sharing successful digital solutions, to be implemented at the Total Population Scale for Digital (7 September, 2023);
  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed an MoU with Cuba on collaboration in the field of Innovation, Science, and Technology (16 September, 2023);
  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed a $600 million I-DICE Financial Agreement with France for the digital and creative enterprise (3 November, 2023).

Religion

  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed an MoU with Saudi Arabia on the 2024 Hajj (7 January, 2024).

Drug Trafficking

  • Nigeria signed an MoU with the State of Qatar on cooperation in the field of Combating Illicit Trade in Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances, and their Precursors (3 March, 2024);
  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed an MoU with India to block the pipeline of illicit drug flow ((15 June, 2024)

Tourism

  • Nigeria through the MFA signed a MoU with the State of Qatar on cooperation in the fields of tourism and business (3 March, 2024).

Culture

  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed an MoU with the US on the preservation of the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site in Adamawa State (16 February, 2024).

Security

  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed two MoUs with the United Nations Office on Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) aimed to enhance their partnership in preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism (30 August, 2023).
  • Nigeria, through the MFA, signed an MoU with the US on training of commanders of the Police Special Intervention Squad to tackle banditry and other crimes (30 January, 2024).

It is important to understand that there is a meticulous process to bilateral agreements. They are a crucial step and the foundation for fruitful relations across a pool of sectors, especially with commitment between the parties.Fredrick Nwabufo is senior special assistant to the President on Public Engagement.

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