By Fortune Abang
Amb. Babacar Matar Ndiaye, Ambassador of Senegal to Nigeria, says his country’s bilateral cooperation with Nigeria has been quite successful in many spheres.
Ndiaye, who is the outgoing Senegalese envoy to Nigeria and Permanent Representative of Senegal to ECOWAS, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.
He commended Nigeria to have made remarkable progress and explained shared attributes between Senegal and Nigeria in terms of culture and tradition.
According to him, both countries share good bilateral relationships and are well represented globally.
Ndiaye said, “Senegal and Nigeria have done a lot together to further deepen their cooperations; we are the same people in every context and you do not feel like being any different.
“It is exciting to have served Senegal and contributed to strengthening the relationship with Nigeria. To have worked in ECOWAS was challenging and deepening cooperation with Nigeria as a country of interest.
“We have done a lot in terms of cooperation; the idea is to boost our bilateral relations.
“We were thinking of possible areas of cooperation and then, Senegal discovered oil very recently and the processing will begin next year.
“The idea was to learn from Nigeria since the country has been in this particular sector for decades and the experience is very interesting.”
He identified the oil sector to be a priority area that Senegal would want to further strengthen her ties with Nigeria, in the bid to build strong economy in the post COVID-19 era.
“One of our main aspects of cooperation is the oil sector, we decided to organise bilateral meetings and we also decided to organise this bilateral commission, which we did amidst COVID-19 challenges.
“In terms of exploring technical areas of cooperation, we could not make it, which is something my successor will be very inspired to work on,” he said.
He expressed the hope that the emergence of the President of Senegal, Macky Sall, as Chairperson of African Union would mark a new turn in the economic development of the ECOWAS sub-region.
He decried the inability by the mission in Nigeria to have held its proposed Private-sector Business Forum between Senegal and Nigeria to encourage economic growth.
He described Nigeria as a nation that is strategically positioned, while noting that more would be done by the mission to achieve the desired goal.
“Nigeria is important to Senegalese, it is a great country in the whole of Africa and the world and it is very strategic.
“We have very specific ties that are cultural with the people of both nations; if you go to Senegal you also see Nigerians there, which is a platform we should promote.
“The relationship between our two countries has been excellent given any opportunity the two countries have.
“Globally, Nigeria remains a very good partner and our two leaders enjoy a very strong relationship, we are here to ensure this continues.
“We are satisfied with what we have done and we hope to build on the successes that have so far been recorded,” he added.
He observed that the fraternal visit by leaders of the two countries respectively to discuss bilateral issues amicably contributed immensely to the success recorded.
He mentioned that both countries could equally learn from each other in line of democratic experiences because of their eras of independence and roles in ECOWAS.
The envoy also extolled Nigeria’s leading role towards promotion of the rule of law and adherence to democracy in ECOWAS sub-region, to be worthy of emulation.
He, however, assured that Senegal and Nigeria would continue to work closely to tackle issues of political insecurity, promote democratic growth and build viable economies. (NAN)
