German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to visit Nigeria October – Presidency
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he will visit Nigeria in October as part of moves to further strengthen economic ties between the two countries.
Presidential aide Ajuri Ngelale said this in a statement he issued on Sunday evening. According to him, the decision was reached on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting where President Bola Tinubu and the German leader met.
“Thank you for this important discussion, Mr. President. I appreciate this opportunity to advance our economic relations. Your market is unique and our companies have a history in Nigeria,” Scholz was quoted as saying after Tinubu expressed his desire to expand the partnership between the countries.
“We acknowledge the business-friendly reforms you have put in place. I am happy to inform you of my desire to visit you in Nigeria in October, which will allow us to carry forward these initiatives.”
On his part, President Tinubu said: “It is not, for us, only a matter of designing the financial architecture for an expanded economic partnership.
“It is also about the practicality of aligning the perspectives of your large-scale manufacturers, such as Volkswagen and others, with the reality of the new incentives my government is putting in place for them to come and prosper across multiple value chains and sectors inside of our country.”
German-Nigerian relations go back over 160 years to the period of Colonial Nigeria. Nigeria operates an Embassy in Berlin and Germany operates an Embassy in Abuja. Germany has a Consulate-General in Lagos and Nigeria has a Consulate-General in Frankfurt.
In 2019, the German consulate in Lagos called for increased spending on Nigeria’s infrastructure to facilitate better trade between Nigeria and Germany. Later that year, President Buhari signed a deal with German energy company, Siemens, to generate at least 25,000 megawatts of electricity for Nigeria’s electric grid by 2025.
