June 07, (THEWILL) – In this piece, Janefrances Chibuzor observes that coastal lines along Lagos State came alive with activities, a few days after Nigeria celebrated its Presidential Inauguration. The event attracted guests from across the country and abroad.
Following the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s newly elected President, France government, under the leadership of the French Minister of State for Development, Francophonie and International Partnerships, Mrs Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, has said her country and the Nigerian government are working on the need to strengthen bilateral and trilateral relationships.
She said the relationships between France and Nigeria emphasise agriculture, culture and security, focusing on enhancing the living standard of youths within three Nigeria States.
Zacharopoulou, who spoke at the event in Lagos, stressed the importance of Nigeria and France’s partnership, as it will help in exchanging ideas and opinions on a crucial subject for inclusive growth across some Nigerian states such as Abuja, Kwara and Lagos.
Zacharopoulou, during the event which had brought together eminent Nigerian and French experts, noted the France President, Emmanuel Macron, historic visit to Nigeria about half a decade ago brought a great acceleration to the partnership between the two countries.
According to her, development of such magnitude will expose the people to a better understanding of the reality every Nigerian is facing.
Zacharopoulou said, “This is an important moment for the country with the emergence of a new President. President Macron told me to represent him here in Nigeria, due to the partnership that exists between the two countries, we face common challenges and we are convinced that we have to work together to get consolation.
“Over the last five days, I had the honour to visit three cities here in Nigeria, which include Abuja, Ilorin and Lagos.”
Speaking with the journalists on Thursday, she noted that during that time, she had successfully met as well as discussed with various national workers, authorities and industry stakeholders. In addition, she had notably exchanged ideas with many actors in societies, businessmen, leaders, and innovators. “And there is a great energy and innovation in this nation, she stated.”
“They have the ability to work and it’s the same with us. France does not just use partners, we go where they want to work with us and where we share the same interest.”
Also, as a European Union representative during the Nigeria 2023 presidential inauguration said ‘she met with Tinubu.’
“And we had a short exchange with the president. We agreed we had a strong political partnership and also many challenges, we have to fight climate change, also it’s time to reinforce our diplomatic ties particularly, we know that your country is a very vital partner concerning global challenges and of course, we discussed our cooperation of peace and stability in this region.
“We know, there are many francophone countries in this region and neighbours, we are waiting for President Tinubu’s call and there are many francophone countries in this region and neighbours, we are waiting for President Tinubu’s call, and we are ready to work together.
“Also, I had the honour to meet the president of The Economic Community of West African States Commission, ECOWAS, H.E. Dr Omar Alieu Touray, we had a very fruitful discussion and discussed regional security and development.
“In addition to this, we signed to finance a total of 20 million, providing ECOWAS in the face of agriculture and providing Food safety in the region.
“I had a ministerial visit in Ilorin, I had the pleasure to meet the Governor, Mr Abdulraham Razaq, and also local authorities and we signed two cooperation agreements between France and the state of Kwara on agriculture. So, we worked on the promotion of the language, it’s very important for the Nigerian people to have access to the French language and after which, the third stop is here in Lagos.”
“In Lagos, we will share the same economic and commercial partnership vision. You are aware that Nigeria is our first trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and trade exchange is amounting to 4.2 billion euros in 2022, there are around 80 French firms in Nigeria and we want to do more. We want to diversify our economic presence in the country and we want to attract more French firms to Nigeria.”
“I met the deputy governor of Lagos and we sat to discuss the promotion of the French language with a program for the public schools and at the same time yesterday, one of the major reasons for visiting this country is our partnership with the film and creative industry, it’s well known in this country, it’s a country of creativity, of music, of films, of innovations, of arts and we know that culture can be a creation for job opportunities and development, it’s a policy for more than many years.
We can see this country is very important and here in Nigeria, we have a wide network of Alliance Française, we have ten across Nigeria.
I met many actors in the cultural sector and also startups of the creative industry and I announced the creation of every founder to support with a quarter of their proceeds to support fashion and design this means France will invest 1.2 million euros to support Nigeria entrepreneurs, of course, we are very proud to do it we also happy to sign a new partnership for the promotion of the French language.
Meanwhile, the event, which started at Radisson Blu, Ikoyi took the participants through Lagos coastline to visit projects, supported by Agence Française De Development, AFD, in Lagos State Waterways Authority.
“One of the France Agencies, AFD has contributed almost three billion euros since 2010 to the development of Nigeria and thanks to AFD’s contribution, two million people have access to drinking water in Nigerian, more than 20,000 kilometres of rural roads have been rehabilitated, more than 1.8 million people benefit from better power supply services. So, we have many things to do together, we believe in this country and we believe that we can create many things together.’
During the inauguration day, a lot of delegations came to the country for this special day and we were received very briefly, we had dialogue, but the message was that we are partners with Nigeria and I was just on the line with the ministers from the EU countries to represent all the countries.
For France, we showed that the relationship is very important and we exchange briefly and told them we had a lot of challenges as I said before, the bilateral and trilateral, which raises the question of regional security, climate change and many others.
We had a lot of exchanges with the president that is totally known, regarding the BUA refinery at Akwa Ibom State, the French government is not involved financially, and the company is involved with the design, feasibility studies and others.
“I don’t know where the construction of the refinery is taking place, but I think it’s a very great project, just as the opening of the Dangote refinery here in Lekki is a game changer for Nigeria because Nigeria is importing too much-refined petroleum products. I think it’s a good thing for the Nigerian people and the Nigerian economy to refine locally, the country was importing fuel at the highest price in the market and exporting crude and all that, this project will guarantee Nigeria’s sovereignty on its energy and also in agriculture.
On what can be done to help democracy in Nigeria, she said, “First of all, it’s not for us to explain what each country has to do. We are not here to give lessons to anybody and each country has a pathway to democracy, so what I can say as I visit and I work with the African continent, I was very happy on Monday and I was there during the inauguration day and the exiting president and incoming president together and it was for me a big example for democracy.’
On security and the Nigeria porous border, she said “We have cooperation with Nigeria and we hope we can strengthen the cooperation, regarding the security, but also working with your neighbours is our aim and this is the vision of President Macron.”
Explaining France’s partnership with the African countries, she added “France’s partnership with the Africa Countries is to build their local capacity and to support national strategies. This is the same for all African countries, that is why I always said, we are here to support them if they want, we can support them globally, not only the security, but also in the area of development, so this is how we work with countries, we work like France and also the same time work like a member of EU, we support the initiative of the EU for the west African countries.
“I visited the countries of Gulf Guinea and we discussed the fight against terrorists, it’s not only a fight of one country, but worldwide, we were there to support, but also help them in their equipment and training of their people and we trained more than 1000 people,” she added.
Janefrances Ebere Chibuzor is a Tourism Writer at THEWILL
