Editor’s Note: The following are excerpts from a recent interview with Nigerian Ambassador Ibrahim Pada Kasai.
Speaking of the roughly estimated 4,000 Nigerian community in Ukraine, they are either students or those decided to stay after they got their degree here or businessmen who found their luck in Ukraine. Many of them are involved in farming.
I was greatly impressed by 1,000 hectare farm of a Nigerian in Kharkiv during a recent visit—in manufacturing, engineering, some are even lecturing. And, of course, there is a category of traders.
The bilateral trade turnover between the two nations was some $400 million before the crisis.
But unfortunately, no trade agreements have been signed yet between Ukraine and Nigeria, neither did official visits on the highest levels take place. Without these two factors, any drastic change in the relations between two countries is impossible, as entrepreneurs may fear to step into the market without governmental agreements.
The trade balance at the moment is highly in favor of Ukraine. Nigeria, which is an agricultural country, gets most of its fertilizers from Ukraine. However, this is a matter of great concern as all of fertilizers are imported through third countries … only this year we are trying to have direct imports of fertilizers from Ukraine to Nigeria. Ukraine also supplies metallurgical products, while Nigeria exports pharmaceutical raw materials to Ukraine. In potential, the main areas of mutual interest would be agriculture, machinery, construction, tourism, etc.
Speaking of racism, when I got here in 2008, it was a matter of extreme concern. Fortunately, the wave of attacks has been stopped. We should also credit the Ukrainian parliament for having finally officially outlawed racism and xenophobia in Ukraine last year.
Unfortunately, Ukrainians do not know much about Africa. It’s understandable, if you look at Western media reports, which are making deliberate efforts to depict only negative aspects of Africa: war, poverty, hunger. However, we should not forget that Africa is going through a lot of positive development and a long history of colonization is there, of course.
My message to the Nigerian community in Ukraine would be to promote interest in their homeland in Ukraine, to succeed here and bring their Ukrainian families to visit Nigeria as their children already belong to both worlds: Ukrainian and Nigerian.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Bugayova can be reached at [email protected].
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