Richard Montgomery, British high commissioner to Nigeria,
says the UK is awaiting the appointment of ministers by President Bola Tinubu
before taking necessary steps toward strengthening collaboration.
Montgomery spoke on Saturday during an interview with NAN in
Abuja.
He said the UK government has identified six areas in which
both countries could strengthen cooperation and explore “new areas to build
upon for mutual benefits”.
The envoy said the UK is more interested in the bilateral
ties with Nigeria as informed by Tinubu’s recent economic decisions.
“We have very
long-standing ties being wired by history and we do have a very strong
foundation on which to build and I am very optimistic about Nigeria’s direction
in the coming years,” NAN quoted Montgomery as saying.
“We wish to build on our economic relations in particular
and the first decisions by the new administration show that it is going to take
big decisions on the economy which I think will give us the opportunity to grow
our trade, investment, and economic relations.
“And I think there are a number of areas where the UK
government can step up our diplomacy, our bilateral relations with Nigeria. But
of course, we await the appointment of new ministers so that we can have the
diplomatic dialogue necessary to lay the grounds for some of those.
“I will say that
there are six areas we would like to explore. The first is, long-standing
development cooperation.
“And I think what the UK always needs to do when a new
administration comes into place is, we need to understand the priorities of
that administration and how we can adapt and work in mutual partnership and
with our development programmes.
“The second is the economic area. We already have a good
economic dialogue but we would like to take the next step and develop a form of
a more enhanced trade and partnership – something I am quite keen to discuss
with the new minister of trade and industry.
“The third area is security and defence, which we would like
to evolve and take forward.
“We already have a
good relationship on home affairs, with your interior ministry and other
agencies, and that is an area where we would like to continue our collaborations.
“Finally, we would like to have a more systematic dialogue
on foreign policy.
“Nigeria has played a very valuable role in regional and
continental issues and the UK would like to have a more systematic foreign
policy dialogue with the government of Nigeria once the ministers and advisers
are in place.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com