Nigeria is Africa’s gold-mine – Pakistani envoy

Banking is one of the challenges in the relationship between Pakistan and Nigeria and your former envoy here had said there is going to be agreement to enable Nigerians have banks in Pakistan and vice-versa. Has there been any progress in this regard?The trade agreement is going ahead. The Nigerian side has sent us the […]

Banking is one of the challenges in the relationship between Pakistan and Nigeria and your former envoy here had said there is going to be agreement to enable Nigerians have banks in Pakistan and vice-versa. Has there been any progress in this regard?
The trade agreement is going ahead. The Nigerian side has sent us the draft and we have forwarded it to Islamabad and probably in our next bi-national commission meeting it will be rectified and concluded.
The basic dealings between the business people of the two countries have shown a lot of improvements. A lot of people are coming to Nigeria and a lot of Nigerians are going to Pakistan. In 2010, the number of business visitors to Pakistan per month was between 10 and 50 but now it is more than 50. So it is improving.
What is the trade balance like? I guess it is in favour of Pakistan and what is the amount involved?
Yes, it is, because we are a producing country. In fact our country exports many items. The total amount of trade is over $150 billion, $130 billion for Pakistan and $20 billion for Nigeria.
What are the Nigerian items that go to Pakistan?
They are not stable. Sometimes it is oil palm, hides and skin, precious stones and sometimes it is other commodities.
What about the Pakistani commodities that are imported to Nigeria?
The major commodities are garments, tractors, tricycles, motor-bikes, building materials, shoes and pharmaceuticals. We have about 17 registered pharmaceuticals in Nigeria doing business.
How is it that the Pakistani health industry is not making in-roads like India into Nigeria? Many Nigerians are now regular tourists for medical reasons to India but not much is heard of people going to Pakistan, why is that so?
We have not worked it out. We have 107 medical schools in Pakistan producing world-class doctors and working in Europe, the Middle East and everywhere and 107 medical schools means 107 teaching hospitals at least. We also have leading private hospitals. We have hospitals doing transplants and surgeries but then we failed to market it. It is our fault and not the fault of Nigeria. Every year some people are go to Pakistan for medical attention, but we have not marketed the Pakistani health industry and hospitals in Nigeria. But the pharmaceuticals are well marketed. We have 562 pharmaceuticals manufacturing companies in Pakistan. It is a huge number and 17 are in the Nigerian market. They came in very late and of course it would take some time to gain confidence of the people in the local market. Other countries have established their companies in the last 40 to 50 years but one thing that is very interesting and good for us is that whenever we talk about Pakistan medicines with the doctors here and even with the director-general of NAFDAC, they speak very high about the quality of Pakistani medicines.
What about Pakistani hospitals in Nigeria?
I was talking about this with the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health in 2012 and she said that they were giving infrastructure to hospitals. After that, if they provide some facilities, we will bring the leading hospitals to Nigeria. I have invited two parties to visit Nigeria and I took them to certain places but they were interested in Abuja, Kano and even Borno. They visited Kano and Abuja but they were unable to visit Borno. To them they did not come on time and that is why there is no Pakistani hospital here.
One of the well known relations between Pakistan and Nigeria is the military pact. How is that relationship now, is it growing or frozen?
We have even bigger number of Nigerian Army officials doing training in Pakistan military, Naval and Air force establishments. We are also training personnel in Coast Guard training. We are also training civil security personnel for Nigeria. In fact, Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police will be visiting Pakistan soon and then afterwards, his Pakistani counterpart will be in Nigeria.
What lesson can Nigeria learn from the Pakistani Expo so that we can attract more development?
There is no lesson to be learnt from anybody. Ensure transparency and then ensure investors that they and their money are safe then everybody would rush to Nigeria – Africa’s gold mine. Nigeria should also produce commodities more than what the country can consume and that can be possible if necessary infrastructures are in place.
Nigeria should ensure that there is constant supply of power, road network that can carry raw materials and finished goods. Delay and clearance of goods at the various ports should also be reduced. Then Nigeria can achieve a lot and do better than Pakistan. Nigeria has a lot of potentials and its scientists should be empowered to reshape the agriculture sector because Nigeria has some of the best fruits in the world.