Yusuf Tuggar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Nigeria, has stated that the country remains impartial in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, despite condoling the Russian government for the terrorist assault in Moscow that killed 140 people.
Tuggar told journalists in Abuja that Nigeria has always had a positive relationship with Russia from the Soviet and Cold War times.
He said; “Nigeria has been consistent in terms of even when we had a bipolar world, we were non-aligned, we were neither with the US nor the Soviet bloc at the time.
“We dealt with both sides. We are equal opportunity aligners, we are aligned with the interests of Nigeria and we will continue to do so.
“This is why we continue to emphasize today on strategic autonomy and that’s the new name for non-alignment since we no longer have those two blocs, you no longer have a bipolar world.
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“With the structure that you have now, it is a multipolar world. We align with whatever polarity benefits Nigeria. The tradition of condoling with countries when they have such unfortunate incidents continues. It’s not new. And Russia is not an enemy.
“Our position on violation of territorial integrity of countries remains the same, it remains consistent, we condemned the violation of Ukraine’s territorial space when it occurred but it does not mean that because of that, we will stop dealing with Russia.
“We will continue to deal with Ukraine, the same way we’re dealing with other countries and whenever something happens to them, whenever there is any misfortune, we will commiserate with them, the same way that they commiserate with us.”
A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.
Nnamdi Okoli
