SAHARA REPORTERS
President Bola Tinubu’s administration has said Nigeria will not cut ties with France just because the military regimes in the Republic of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali did.
Nigeria’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggah, while speaking in an interview on Arise News Television’s Prime Time programme on Wednesday said the call by some Nigerians for Nigeria to cut ties with France is myopic and against Nigeria’s national interest as a country.
The minister said, “For Nigeria as a whole, I have some locus to speak on behalf of Nigeria. It is insulting to Nigeria and Nigerians for anyone to look at Nigeria and say that they are in course after I finished describing all of these things – Operation Barkhane, G-5 Sahel.
“Were we the ones that were partnering with France on that? Were we the ones that passed the law 2015, 36? Were we the ones that partnered on the arrangement that criminalised migration, that securitised the Sahel region? No!”
The minister was confronted about an alleged ‘renewed partnership’ between Nigeria and France.
The minister said, “What I will like to see is journalist like you (referring to the anchor of the interview), and certain Nigerians that have been weeping up this position of minority and certain people that spoke out in third world countries is to actually look at how they are allowed to even come to actually speak and criticise or to make these porous allegations.
“The countries that they are trying to defend, like Niger, at the moment the way things are, you cannot even come out to speak. They are not operating on constitution.
“The reason we are able to do all of these is because we have the constitutions of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which safeguard, which guarantee our right to free speech, our right to free association, and all these freedoms.
“I would like to see us speak for Nigeria for change instead of always speaking for regimes that do not even have constitutions to protect their own people. Their own people cannot even come out to criticise the government.”
“Yet, we keep on going on with all these attacks on our own government, on ourselves,” he said.
When asked about the implications of a ‘renewed partnership’ between Nigeria and France, he said, “We have always had a relationship with France. It did not start today, and there is nothing different about our relationship with France today.
“But it does not mean that other countries or other people have to dictate to Nigeria who it should have a relationship with.
“We cannot tackle the issue of insecurity in our region simply by a partnership or by being friends with the Sahel countries. Even if we do that, you still have Libya to contend with.”
He added, “To solve Libya, we need a relationship with France, we need a relationship with the United States of America, we need a relationship with Russia, we need a relationship with all of these major powers.
“You cannot say because Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali have decided after all these years, that they no longer want to have anything to do with France, therefore, Nigeria must be compelled.
“Meanwhile, Nigeria is the senior partner in the relationship than them, then because they decided that they don’t want to have a relationship with France, they must dictate to us and we must comply. We should no longer have any relationship with France!
“It is shortsighted, it is myopic and it is not in Nigeria’s national interest, which is something that President Tinubu, myself and everybody in government or in public office from top to bottom has sworn to, to protect the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and that is enshrined in the constitution.”
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