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Bola Tinubu chaired meetings at the Elysée Palace to bolster his country’s position as a top trade partner for France. He said that French investors could invest in Nigeria which offered bountiful opportunities.
For the first time in 24 years, a Nigerian President began a state visit to France to boost economic ties and attract foreign investments. It is the first time a sitting Nigerian President has visited France in the last two decades.
Bola Tinubu chaired meetings at the Elysée Palace to bolster his country’s position as a top trade partner for France. He said that French investors could invest in Nigeria which offered bountiful opportunities.
France’s Emmanuel Macron is pushing to expand his country’s strategic ties beyond its traditional sphere of influence in the wake of a series of coups and power shifts that have seen several countries from Mali to Niger move away from their former colonial ruler.
France seeks to strengthen economic ties with Africa, as the visit sets up the two presidents for meetings at the “Franco-Nigerian Business Council” forum. Macron said at the meeting that France could help Nigeria to ensure food safety, boosting extraction industries, and in value adding to existing manufacturing industries. Niger’s military junta banned the French aid group Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development. The Ministry of the Interior signed a decree withdrawing the nonprofit organization’s license to operate, without providing reasons for the decision.
Tinubu is accompanied by some of the highest-ranking officials in his government including popular businessmen like Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote.
Ties President Macron last visited Nigeria in 2018 during the tenure of the then President Buhari. The visit to Nigeria then marked a return to familiar territory for Macron. He spent six months in Abuja as an intern at the French embassy in 2002.
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Franca has been seen to be courting the English-speaking regions and countries in Africa to replace the French countries after his fallout with some of them like the Sahel countries. Macron visited several countries in Africa including Kenya and Ethiopia in 2019, South Africa in 2021, and Nigeria in 2018. According to the latest data, Nigeria is the leading trading partner for France in Africa followed by South Africa.
