Ready to deepen cooperation with Poland: Nigerian President Buhari

Nigeria expresses readiness to fortify and deepen its economic, agricultural and processing cooperation with Poland, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari stressed on Tuesday during his meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda who had descended on Abuja – the first stop in his African tour.

Most importantly, Tuesday saw the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between Poland and Nigeria in the field of agriculture. But as President Buhari stressed, more agreements were in the making, including a memorandum of defensive cooperation.

“We are ready to reinforce our bilateral relations in a range of fields,” the Nigerian leader said.

The head of the Nigerian state felt that although Polish-Nigerian trade relations have been around for some time already, they have not yet made the best of their full potential. “As Nigeria, we express our readiness to fortify and deepen the economic, energy, agricultural and processing cooperation.”

President Buhari thanked Poland for its effort put in aiding Ukrainian refugees and for helping bring back Nigerian students from Ukraine to their homeland.

Poland seeks to ramp up oil and LNG shipments from Nigeria

Being on his first ever visit Nigeria, President Duda said on Tuesday that Poland was interested in ramping up its imports of Nigerian oil and LNG as they may prove important to ensuring energy security in Poland, let alone the European Union.

“The first [Nigerian] LNG shipments to the LNG terminal in Świnoujście were already carried out over the recent years. We would like shipments from Nigeria to Poland to grow in the near future,” President Duda said.

Prezydent @AndrzejDuda w Abudży #Nigeria: Z punktu widzenia bezpieczeństwa energetycznego dzisiejsze rozmowy są dla nas bardzo ważne jeśli chodzi o dostawy Polski i UE gazu LNG, jak i ropy naftowej. pic.twitter.com/DA4QEhVuSZ

— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) September 6, 2022

To render itself fully independent from Russian gas and oil deliveries, Poland has been seeking alternative sources of energy for months.

Currently, Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and the eighth biggest exporter thereof in the world. Moreover, the country is the world’s number five in terms of the largest LNG exports.

The robust activity of terrorist groups in the region has been a challenge to trading with Nigeria.

Among other African countries, President Duda is scheduled to visit Senegal.