The Australian High Commissioner, Jon Richardson, tells KAMARUDEEN OGUNDELE how he intends to strengthen relations between Nigeria and Australia
Nigeria and Ghana share similarities, as a former Australian High Commissioner to Ghana, how do you bring your experiences to bear in Nigeria?
It is true there are similarities between the two countries. I guess the most important thing is the people. Of course, there are different people in both countries. Some of the challenges facing the people are similar in terms of problems of development, governance and building democracy. I think having had experience in Ghana and also being aware of wider history of Africa. Nigeria is bigger and some of the challenges as well as the achievements of Nigeria are on different scale to Ghana. Ghana, Australia and Nigeria are members of the Commonwealth. There are similarities in our system of government, law and education. We also have English Language as a common language. How language is used in Ghana and Nigeria is similar, that will be helpful in terms of dealing with the people.
Can we know your vision and mission to strengthen the ties between the countries?
To build up a period of strong growth in our bilateral relations and that includes high level contact such as President Goodluck Jonathan's visit to Australia during the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in 2011. He also had a bilateral visit at the same time. That was a very important step in our bilateral relations and there was a very strong economic delegation from Nigeria that attended that meeting and established Australia-Nigeria Trade and Investment Council. The council is a private sector body to facilitate commercial ties between the two countries. We have also grown in the activities of Australian mining companies and other sectors. We have also grown in terms of official exchanges in the area of signing of bilateral Memorandum of Understanding between our foreign ministries. This will enable us to undertake regular consultations and dialogue. We will continue to discuss issues of international interest and concern with the Nigerian government. So, we are very engaged in a range of international issues, including the West Africa sub-region and the crisis in Mali. In the commercial sector, Nigeria is now our largest overall trade partner in Africa, thanks to a very large export of nearly $3bn of export of Nigeria crude petroleum to Australia. That makes Nigeria one of the top sources of petroleum and in fact, we are one of the Nigeria's largest export market and this has developed quite rapidly. We want to also improve on our export trade from the point of view of increasing Australia's export to Nigeria as well as investment in Nigeria. We want to be able to work with Nigerians and government so as to better position ourselves.
What is the Australian Agency for International Development about?
The Australian Agency for International Development is our government's agency responsible for delivering development assistance overseas. The prime objective of the Australian aid programme, which was worth more than $5bn last year, is to help people overcome poverty. AusAID provides aid to a wide range of countries around the world – in Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. Australia's assistance to Africa has also grown strongly, increasing three-fold over the last five years. It focuses on where Australia has experience and expertise and is best able to make a difference in the areas of food security and agriculture, water and sanitation, maternal and child health, and helping build Africa's human resource capacity. We are also supporting African governments' efforts to improve governance and transparency in the mining sector.
How is Nigeria benefiting from Australian development assistance?
Australian assistance to Nigeria has a strong emphasis on capacity building and supporting governance of the mining sector, which is still in a relatively early stage of development in Nigeria. A total of 80 Nigerians were awarded places on AusAID funded courses in Australia in 2011-12. This comprised both long-term postgraduate, mostly Masters-level degrees and short-term specialised courses in a range of areas including health, public administration, environment, education, mining and agriculture.
Nigeria has been offered a further 31 postgraduate scholarships in 2013 as well as 19 places on short courses, which are usually two to three months long. The selection of candidates is targeted at sectors and people who can make a strong contribution to national development and it is coordinated with the Federal Government. Representatives of the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have also been included in diplomatic training courses conducted by Australia.
In mining, apart from these training opportunities, Australia is funding a programme aimed at elaborating an action plan for identifying and developing mining districts, including infrastructure in those areas; reviewing education and training to enhance mining sector employment and reviewing and updating the fiscal regime for mining. In addition, five senior-level officials from Nigeria participated in mining governance study-tours to Australia in 2012 and nine participated in similar tours in 2011. Australia is also one of the leading donors to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, in which Nigeria is a member and implementing country.
We are also assisting Nigeria through a number of global and regional programmes. For example, Australia contributed $50m in 2011 to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, for which Nigeria is a high priority. Nigeria is also a priority country of the UNICEF Global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programme, funded by Australia. The programme aims to increase access to safe water and sanitation, mainly in schools, and promote improved hygiene practices. I should mention that Nigeria benefits from an agricultural research project being implemented under an Australian partnership with the West African Council for Agricultural Research and Development. The project aims to increase the use of improved seed varieties to enable poor farmers to grow more food.
Why should a tourist visit Australia?
Australia has a huge diversity of places of natural beauty, well-developed tourism industry and well-set out friendly cities in the world. The combination of those things is very attractive. We have geographical designs ranging from tropical beaches and tropical rain forest which is not different from tropical rain forest in Africa. We also have deserts, we have beautiful greens, cool temperate forest in the south of the country and the Australian forest which is distinctive. Australians are very friendly and welcoming people. It is a relatively very safe place for travellers to visit. We have a lot to offer tourists. The latest figure suggests we have five million tourists coming to Australia annually.
How comfortable is the Australian community in Nigeria?
They have some of the same concerns that other people have, depending on which part of the country they are in. Obviously, there is increase in violence in northern part of the country relating to terrorism and insurgency. People are naturally more conscious about their own security and how much they can travel around the country. I think in some parts of the country, I have seen some improvement in recent times. Although there are some problems affecting the expatriates in the southern part of the country relating to kidnapping and foreigners are exposed more often as potential targets. We certainly encourage our citizens to take suitable precautionary steps and to have good security awareness. Otherwise, in a more general sense, people who live here are enjoying their interaction with local people. They are also in many cases being able to make positive contributions.
Can you name some of of the business interests of Aussies in Nigeria and how they are contributing to the economic growth of Nigeria?
We do have prominent Australian companies in Nigeria. We have a company that is involved in construction of expressways in Lagos. One of our biggest companies has a large operation in Lagos with a Nigerian partner called Delta-Afrique. Its strong focus at the moment is in providing engineering project management services to the oil industry. It has extensive ranging engineering expertise. They employed about 750 people in Lagos. Another Australian company is Kogi-Iron working on probably the most advanced mining project any of the Australian company involved in. The local name is KCM Mining.
How much of inter-marriages do we have between the two countries?
I don't have statistics on that. The population of Nigerians in Australia is about 10,000 strong. But some of the Nigerian emigrants have married non Nigerian-Australians, because many of the Nigerians in Australia are Australians so it is difficult to define what is inter-marriage in that sense. We have a small community in Abuja. I know a couple of Australians who have married Nigerians. So, it does happen.
Since the two countries are members of Commonwealth, do we share same ideological belief?
The Commonwealth has some strongly defined shared values in relation to upholding democracy, good governance, human rights and development. Upholding our core values is regarded as a fundamental dimension of membership of Commonwealth. In that sense, we do share ideological positions, and we approach a lot of issues same way. It does not mean we don't have some differences in some instances but we share values and both countries also promote international peace and security. Like Nigeria, we also have strong commitment to peace keeping, which has made Nigeria one of the strongest international contributions to international peace keeping in terms of personnel. Australia has contributed to over 50 UN peace-keeping missions. We are currently participating in peace-keeping in southern Sudan and Cyprus, among others.
