Nigeria, S’Africa tidy trade ties, free entry for nationals

THE Federal Government is leading the campaign for free entry into South Africa and Nigeria for diplomats and holders of the two countries’ official passports.

The proposal was presented to South Africa yesterday at the on-going Eighth Nigeria-South Africa Bi-National Commission (BNC) confab in Cape Town.

The Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Working Group of the BNC spent much of its time yesterday to perfect the document so that the countries’ foreign ministers and co-chairs of the commission could sign it before the session winds up tomorrow.

In view of their pre-eminent positions on the continent, relations between Nigeria and South Africa are regarded as strategic by diplomats and investment facilitators.

The draft agreement on waivers of visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports had only been partially acceded to by South Africa when the country’s officials settled for a three-year waiver after the last BNC in 2008. But the implementation committee, which is the engine room, has met twice after that session.

The current BNC is however meant to resolve all outstanding issues after the recent row between the two countries over yellow fever card. Prior to the current meeting, collaborations between the two countries through the BNC have never gone beyond signature on documents that end up in the shelves.

Visa waivers, brings back memories of the old order in the Commonwealth of Nations when citizens of member-countries did not require visas to enter Great Britain.

The other working groups, which broke into sessions yesterday, included those on Trade and Finance, Defence and Security, Agriculture, Water Resources and Environment, Minerals and Energy, Public Enterprises and Infrastructure as well as Social and Technical.

In his defence of the visa waiver quest, the Director, Africa Bilateral Affairs Department (ABAD) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Olabode Adekeye, said: “Nigeria and South Africa do need an arrangement that facilitates the work that the BNC sets out to achieve in terms of better collaboration and economic empowerment of citizens of our country.”

Adekeye was responding to the opening speech of the South African Deputy Director-General, Africa Bilateral, Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Ambassador Gladys Sonto Kudjoe.

Adekeye also told The Guardian that, “the waiver is only meant to be a first step in the eventual scheme of things. The Ideal destination is a no visa provision.

“If we are to facilitate trade and investments, if we are to cooperate at the desired level of bilateral relations, there is the need to remove all impediments to the movement of facilitators and agents and promoters of economic relations. Once this is done, the rest is made easier. We can do without the current restrictive immigration requirements considering the level that the two countries want to operate with our BNC.”

Both the South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Kingsley Mamabolo and his Nigerian counterpart at the Mission in Pretoria, Ambassador Sunni Yusuf, who were on hand yesterday, expressed the hope that delegates and senior officials working on the desired BNC would exert strictly within the themes of the revised agenda and ensure that the document that will be signed at the current session meets the expectations of both nations.

But, negotiations on aviation matters were knocked off the agenda yesterday due to the absence of the working groups in that sector. The Guardian learnt that their all-important session had been shifted till next month.

-Guardian

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