Relations between the Russian Federation and Nigeria have recently become stronger. Against the background of global market developments in recent years, Russia has become an attractive partner for Nigeria.
Russia prepares a free consignment of fertilizer for
delivery to Nigeria, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin,
the issue in question is the supply of Russian fertilizers, which fell under
Western sanctions and were delivered at Moscow's expense. "This is the
real picture that exists today, and this picture, unfortunately, many people
are trying to gloss over. But I think efforts to present the wrong picture of
what is happening will absolutely not be successful," he concluded.
In Nigeria, there are many areas with difficult climatic conditions,
such as lack of rainfall, drought and high temperatures, which make it
difficult to grow food. This situation is exacerbated by climate change.
This initiative is expected to improve the level of
agricultural production and meet local market demand, thereby reducing imports
in the long term. The initiative also comes as Nigeria's food import bill is
expected to rise by 41% to over $4.6 billion by 2021, according to data from
the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics.
Moscow earlier offered to donate Russian fertilizers blocked
in the ports of Latvia, Estonia, Belgium and the Netherlands to the African
countries. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the amount in question was
262,000 tons. The first and only consignment of 20,000 tons was sent from the
Netherlands to Malawi. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that
leaders of several African countries had contacted him because the West had
blocked supplies of Russian fertilizers.
Such cooperation between Russia and Nigeria strengthens the
relationship between the two countries and opens the door to the development of
relations in several other areas.
Nigeria must continue to strengthen his relationship with Russia especially as he has decided to join the BRICS. I was surprised that Nigeria despite the fact that the U.S. delayed in the delivery for almost two years of Super Turcano fighter jets from America, they continued acquisitions of military weapons from there. Whereas, Mali got all his military equipments from Russia in less than one year, and this comprises of: advanced MiG fighter jets, drones equipped with missiles, mobile satellite radar to gather informations, and locate adverse troops, troops air lifting aircraft, armour tanks, combat helicopters etc etc. Mali is said to be the most military equipped African nation after Nigeria, and was done in less than a year with the help of Russia.
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