‘Nigeria must align with Russia to benefit from the global energy crises

In this interview with LINUS ALEKE, a former presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Party (APC), Mallam Adamu Garba, shares his thoughts on national and international politics and zeroes in on how Nigeria can benefit maximally from the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine

Europe and America depend largely on oil and gas from Russia; and now that Russia and Ukraine are entangled in a bitter war, and the West is pushing for sanctions against Russia, is Nigeria taking advantage of this crisis to benefit itself economically, especially as it concerns the supply of oil and gas to Europe and America?

No, we are not. We are making a very big mistake. Very big mistake in the sense that we are jumping to sign every agreement that they are promising to give us dollars in aid. I saw a European delegation coming to Nigeria to say that they are going to buy our natural gas. The delegation said they are targeting 40 per cent of the natural gas supply from Nigeria. We just jump at it and sign, and once we sign, there are clauses in the agreement that may say that since we signed for the supply of the natural gas we are directly aligned with them and if you are aligning with them, if they are fighting with Russia, you must join them as an ally. If Russia is bombing them, we will also be bombed. Are we ready as a country to incur the wrath of Russia? So, this is the question we must ask ourselves? In the first instance, we don’t even have the infrastructure to supply the volume of gas they are demanding, since we are going to benefit from the war.

So, we are not prepared. But how can we get ourselves prepared?

It is simple, we can just create a special purpose company. A special-purpose company that will be responsible for handling Nigeria’s oil and gas. Ones we do that, we perfect that company, standardize the company as a global … and then put it on the global stock exchange. So, that both Russia, the West and other interested parties can buy some shares in the company. And the gas we bring from Nigeria will become a global asset, therefore, no one will accuse us of favouring one side against the other. So, we can continue to get our money to build our country, while they continue with their war. We will not have any problem, if Russia accuses us of supporting the West, we will just remind them that they have shares in the company. If on the other hand, they claim not to have a share, we would encourage them to come and buy. You understand what I mean. So, we have to have a very strategic approach to it because it is going to be to our advantage, but it could also be very dangerous. That was why I published a warning at a time, that this is a very critical problem. UN Secretary-General came to Nigeria, and then we have a European delegation again coming to Nigeria. The aftermath of the visits was that Nigeria got $1bn approval to buy a weapon to prosecute the war against insurgency. Within the same period, we have the UK discovering another 36 million pounds of Abacha loot that they said they are in the process of repatriating. They are trying to create a new friendship. So, once we put ourselves into that trap, we now get into trouble, whereby we would be strategically aligned to the West. Russia would not allow that while because since Russia is punishing them, and putting pressure on them by denying them gas, as we approach winter, we are giving them an alternative. That means, we are neutralizing that pressure, if we neutralize that pressure and Russia become angry it is a problem. We already have problems in the Sahel region. We have problems around the Gulf of Guinea. The Russian military is already in Mali, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, and the Central Africa Republic. Just our neighbours, all they need to do is just to instigate another crisis and we continue to kill ourselves here and in the Gulf of Guinea. There are other things that people are not even paying attention to, the European guys came to Nigeria to talk about this natural gas and we are trying to jump in because we need money quickly to go to an election. We have local refineries, which are being burnt down in Imo, Rivers, and other Niger Delta regions. All the local refineries we are setting up will now begin to catch fire, when they are catching fire, it then means that they are discouraging local refining so that we can still depend on them for the importance of finished petroleum products …we give them, they do what they want to do with them. These are very serious problems. That is why I am recommending that we should be very careful not to put ourselves in trouble as Nigerians, as this war rages on.

Beyond an international company that you proposed which will enable Nigeria as a country to benefit from the Russia/Ukraine crisis, what else does Nigeria needs to do immediately to ensure that Nigeria takes advantage of these anticipated benefits in the energy sector?

I think Nigeria should look toward Russia. Russia is very critical, and if Russia is succeeding in this war, does it destroy us or does it makes us better? The more expensive the price of fossil fuel is, the better for Nigeria. If Russia’s pressure on the West is making the price of fuel to be more expensive, why are we jumping to the West? If we should align, we should align to where we will get more money, you understand. If it is an alignment, and we must align, we should align with Russia. Because the more they bomb Ukraine, the more the price of oil go high and the more money we make. I may sound very hawkish for saying this, but that is the way politics is played in the international arena.

We don’t care about what other people are doing, if they choose to kill one another that is their problem, so long as we can make our money. If we decide to neutralize Russia’s pressure on the West, what do we stand to benefit?

The aid that UN Secretary-General came and say he will give to Borno State, was just $250m, is that what we want? Imagine, if we are exporting two to three hundred million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria at 150 dollars per barrel, how much is it going to be per day? So, we should wait for hand out, because we are trying to be good friends to the West, does that even make sense? When we come to international politics, it is a national interest 100 per cent, if the whole country is burning down, it is none of your business, provided the UN charter does not authorize you to do something, it is none of your business. All we need to do is to look at the avenue where we can benefit better. And if Russia is the best guy, I align with Russia that is what I will recommend.

You earlier said that if you are allowed to govern Nigeria, you are going to pay very serious attention to foreign policy. In the 60s, the centre piece of our foreign policy was “Africa First,” what will you say is the centre piece of our foreign policy today as a country?

I don’t think we have any foreign policy. I think we just go to international occasions and collect Estacada and come back. Whenever the meeting is going on, our delegation will be busy sleeping or listening to music with an earpiece, and when they say, ‘those in favour say aye,’ they will say aye and come back and collect Estacada. I don’t think we have a foreign policy. That is why we are failing grossly; Nigeria is making from the outside, not from the inside. The map we use today as a country was first done by people from outside. So, it is our careful, calibrated, strategic approach to handling them in very top-level negotiations, in the interest of our people that will make us better. If we don’t do that, we would make things worse and that is the situation we find ourselves in today. Today, our president went to Cote D’Ivoire on this (COP 26), climate change summit, when the implementation of the climate change plan is not in our favour. If we implement that policy, we would be in trouble because we don’t have any infrastructure even for the first industrial revolution. These guys are projecting the fourth industrial revolution, and we are jumping to be signing papers happily. We are not considering the deposit of coal that we have in Enugu, which we need for electricity. We are not considering that we need to build massive infrastructure around the sunny side of the country towards the North. We are not considering so many things that we need to negotiate, we are just jumping to sign so that France will clap for us. It does not make sense, it is very dangerous, that we are putting our heads together in a French affair. Because they have their history in Africa, it is always destructive when it is told, and our president was there jumping. These are the problems.

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Would you blame all these anomalies in the management of our foreign policy on wrong decisions, in the appointment of officials, starting from the Minister to the least person in that sector?

Of course, the current administration came on board with an ideology … and that is why we failed in the area of foreign policy. Sometimes, it is not even about the personality that is selected to handle that specialized sector but the ideology behind the person that is appointing that official. That means, that if my thinking is to the south, and I appointed somebody from the South when I say south in this sense, I mean negative, and I appointed somebody from the negative, it means I should expect a negative result. So, we must have a focus, a mission programme for our foreign office. In Nigeria, 70 per cent of our government is supposed to be one leg in foreign countries in terms of management that is the only way we can make peace. Our education has to tally, our water resources have to tally, our health sector needs to tally, I don’t know if you understand, because we have this globalized arrangement. The world is a connected dot, so until we can push further and negotiate our interests we would always be at the receiving end. Now, our health ministry, the largest health ministry in Africa depends on aid. We cannot even manufacture a vaccine for malaria. Since malaria started, it has killed more Nigerians than all other diseases combined. So, these are the issues.