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… Signs MoU on Agriculture, Energy others
Obiora Ifoh, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has commended Polish President, Andrzej Duda for accommodating and providing assistance to a large number of refugees that fled into his country from Ukraine, which included a significant number of Nigerians.
President Buhari also expressed the readiness of Nigerian government to enlarge its bilateral relationship with the European nation in the areas of Agriculture, Energy, Education and manufacturing sector.
President Duda who is the first Polish President since Nigeria’s Independence in 1960 to visit the most populous black nation also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with President Buhari to strengthen the relations between Poland and Nigeria in the area of food security, energy and defence.
Speaking at the occasion, President Buhari said, “I wish to seize this opportunity to commend the efforts of the government of Poland for the assistance provided to the large number of refugees that flee into your country from Ukraine, which included a significant number of Nigerians.
“I also wish to express our sincere gratitude on the kind and generous support extended during our government evacuation of our fleeing nationals. We also appreciate the opportunities given to some of our nationals to remain in Poland to continue with their studies.
“As regards relations, we will like to see an increase in the level of trade inspite of the long period of relations of our countries. I wish to express the readiness of Nigeria to enlarge in our relationship including in the field of energy and manufacturing.
“In view of the numerous global challenges, we will like to develop new mechanisms such as regular Strategic Dialogues on International Issues. Our cooperation in education has a long history. And we wish to encourage the extension of the cooperation to the sharing of knowledge and its uses to education institutions in areas such as Science and Technology and Information and Communication Technology, in order to help drive innovation in our countries and raise Consciousness global knowledge economy. Once again, I wish to thank President Duda for visiting our country and hope that this will take to mutually beneficial relationship.”
The Polish President, Duda, in his response appreciated the Nigerian leader for inviting him as the visit has afforded both leaders to talk about furthering and deepening the relations between the two countries.
“And also a point of importance that I wish to stress is that Nigeria is the only African country with which Poland has signed an agreement on Strategic Dialogue.
“And actually a very good part of this strategic dialogue is the memorandum of cooperation in the area of agriculture that we have just signed a couple of minutes ago. It is immensely important piece of document, especially in the light of the food security crisis that is faced right now. And not only by Nigeria, but also by the entire African continent.
“And the 10 most pivotal aspects that we raised in our conversation today, both in our private tet-a-tet as well as during the plenary session was how to provide food security and energy security nowadays. Both of these topics, of course, stem from the situation that we are faced with today in Europe and to be more precise in our part of Europe. That is the aftermath of the Russian aggression and the war in Ukraine.
“And the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which is totally unjustified, and has sparked off a very serious food crisis and a very serious energy crisis.
“As the country who is also a member of the United Nations, it is so important to support Ukraine in its export of grain and food products out of the country. But it’s equally burden to us to provide our support to Africa and in particular to our partners country, that is Nigeria.
“And that is why it’s so important to us to further strengthen the relations between Poland and Nigeria right now. And one element is strengthening that these relations is the memorandum that we have signed today. It is very important for the future of our relations, but also for the future of the food security in Nigeria and at large. It can also contribute to the modernization and increasing the efficiency of Nigerian economy and Nigerian agriculture but it also can serve as a vehicle for sharing experiences.
“Speaking about the energy security dimension. So the talks that we’ve had today are essential from the perspective of supplying both LNG gas as well as oil to Poland and to the European Union.
“And speaking about those natural resources Nigeria is indeed very wealthy. And I want to also add that the first is applies on the LNG gas to our LNG gas terminal from Nigeria had already happened, just like the import of crude oil performed by our oil company Latos. Those shipments did happen in recent years. And that means well for the future, because we do want to further develop this cooperation, we want to increase the supplies from Nigeria to Poland. And by this way, we also want to contribute to the development of economic relations between both our countries.
“And just to end, I would like to say that, and underline that over the last 60 years, we have been able to establish a very good relations, bilateral relations and contacts between Poland and Nigeria, on the people-to-people level. And that has happened due to many Nigerians studying in Poland, but also due to this case of Polish scientists and also due to the input of Polish engineers in the building of infrastructure in Nigeria. I do believe that these good people-to-people relations will also spill over on other fields. And they will contribute to the development of the economic relations between both our countries which are so immensely important nowadays.”