Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister is visiting Tunisia, a trip that is the first of its kind – by a Nigerian senior level offical – in 30 years.
The visit has seen Geoffrey Onyeama first meet with Tunsian President Beji Caid Essebsi, and also sitting down with his Tunisian counterpart to discuss how to strengthen cooperation in various sectors.
The Nigerian Foreign affairs minister arrived in Tunis on Wednesday for a two day official visit. He met with the President at Carthage palace where they discussed ways of boosting bilateral ties.
“We face similar economic challenges,” Onyeama said in a statement.
“Therefore, we have identified where we feel that the two countries can really achieve real concrete deliverables… education, health, in the area of infrastructure development, ICT information and communication technologies.. renewable energies, we even talked about the mutual assistance and training of our diplomats”
The Nigerian Foreign minister said that Nigeria, Tunisia and all African countries could benefit from each other’s experience by facilitating cooperation and supporting each other’s claims and projects in the continent.
“We also looked at our joint roles at the sub-regional level. Tunisia has applied and we supported very much that application for an observer status of the economic community of West African states ECOWAS,” Onyeama added.
“It will be a win win situation. We will increase the market access for Tunisia to the West African market and give an opportunity also for West African countries to also benefit from those areas and sectors in which Tunisia has real comparative advantage.”
The war on terror and the security in Africa were also on the agenda of the meeting.
“The terrorist threat is an existential threat for Tunisia, Nigeria and other African states,” said Khemaies Jhinaoui, Foreign Affairs Minister of Tunisia.
“It is clear that the only way we can overcome this is by working closely together. This is what we’re planning to do by sharing intelligence and other means of cooperation between our intelligence and security services.”
Khemaies Jhinaoui and his Nigerian counterpart insisted on putting an end to the war in Libya through more mediation efforts and dialogue.
“We have discussed the situation in Libya. We have agreed to help our Libyan brothers to overcome their differences and to opt for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Libya,” Jhinaoui said.
At the continental level, the heads of the Tunisian and the Nigerian diplomacies identified some of the challenges facing the African Union. They agreed on the way forward in addressing those challenges. The statement of the presidency shed light on the importance of having a strong and independent African Union that responds to the needs of African countries
The Nigerian Foreign Minister’s visit to Tunisia heralds a new era of cooperation between the two countries. Analysts maintain that African leaders would do well to keep developing new partnerships in various sectors on the continent.
