Unfortunately Nigeria is not tapping into the opportunities that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is presenting to her on a platter

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Last week, a European Union delegation visited Abuja to ask that Nigeria replace Russia as their main gas supplier. Why did we not figure out that opportunity ourselves? Nigeria should have plugged the gap in the market as soon as sanctions were introduced against Moscow?

[2] Many people may have now forgotten but last year, Nigeria and Russia signed a bilateral pact that covered a whole range of areas. These included steel production, railway construction, military training, the supply of 12 attack helicopters and power supply

[3] Russia can easily see the writing on the wall. Everything is cyclical. Western Europe is fast becoming yesterday’s man, Britain is on the verge of becoming a Third World nation with her Brexit madness, in Japan, the ageing population makes it impossible for continued accelerated growth and the US arrogance as exemplified by Donald Trump means that its days as an economic super power are numbered

[4] I am not surprised that President Vladimir Putin has turned to Africa to revive Russia’s fortunes. He needs the continent's gold, diamonds, bauxite, cocoa, coffee, rubber, palm oil, cashews, groundnuts, cassava, yam, copper, tin, cotton, etc to develop his economy. As we speak, China has more patents than the entire European Union. While Russia was snoring, China was building the fastest, tallest, biggest and longest everything. Clearly Putin hopes that his recent deal with 40 African nations will allow him bridge that gap

[5] On paper, Nigeria got a good deal as the Russians will revive Ajaokuta and get the nation producing steel. Russia will also build a Lagos to Calabar railway line and enter into a joint venture with the NNPC to build gas fired power plants. However, I am disappointed that the deal does not include an agreement on fishing, which is a sector in which Russia is very strong

[6] There is an old saying that only a fool is thirsty amid the abundance of water. Nigeria fits this bill perfectly when it comes to fishing as we have 853km of Atlantic coastline and are one of the world’s largest fish importers. This simply defies all logic and it is unfortunate that the government did not use the Russia summit as an opportunity to tackle the problem

[7] Annually, Nigeria consumes 3.32m tonnes of fish but alas, we only produce 1.12m tonnes a year. We thus import 2.2m tonnes of fish annually. Nigeria is currently the fourth largest fish importer in the world, spending about $1.5bn a year on the product. That is an expense we simply cannot afford. Just imagine how many Almajiris $1.5bn will train to become carpenters, mechanics, tailors, cobblers, bricklayers, etc

[8] Russia in contrast produces about 5m tonnes of seafood a year, accounting for about 2.3% of world output. Not satisfied, the Russian government has launched an aggressive expansion programme. Russia’s government offers a subsidy of two-thirds of the credit needed to construct and modernise aquaculture facilities. Fish farmers and fishermen just have to apply for these loans. Also, Russia has five technical universities that train specialists in fisheries, offering programmes for fisheries biology, navigation and marine engineering, fish processing, processing machinery, the economics of fisheries and aquaculture. Four professional schools also graduate middle level professionals, while nine Russian universities graduate about 120 aquaculture specialists each year. In addition, the biological departments of several universities also graduate specialists in fish biology and fishery oceanography

[9] Russia’s fish industry is worth about $5.5bn a year and the sector generates about $3bn in export earnings. Russia exports $8.4m worth of mackerel to Nigeria annually, making it our biggest fish supplier. Our total mackerel import bill is about $33.8m a year, with countries like the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Netherlands and Mauritania all exporting to this dumb country. Mauritania for instance has a coastline of 754km but exports fish to Nigeria that has a coastline of 853km! Hmmmm

[10] As we speak, Russia is desperate for friends. Nigeria should be involved in high level negotiations with them. As part of a fresh Nigeria-Russia Pact, we should be asking President Vladimir Putin to open three school of fisheries in maybe Badagry, Warri and Calabar, to finish Ajaokota and Aladja steel plants within a year and to open at least one shipyard in the Niger Delta.