The European Union (EU) has said that it is willing to help Nigeria attract more investment, according to Michell Arion (photo, right), EU Ambassador and Head of EU delegation to Nigeria.

“We believe that our prosperity is your prosperity, we see West Africa as a block of ECOWAS and Nigeria as the economic base. We see West Africa not as export designation for the EU but investment destination for EU. I will say that what we can do is to facilitate the EU investment in Nigeria, not only at the level of bilateral relations but in other areas,” he said at a political dialogue between Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, other ministry officials and 20 representatives of EU member states in Abuja.

According to Arion, there are lot of ways the EU and Nigeria can work together, particularly in the area of peace and security. “We really believed that our security in the EU is your security; I believe we are fighting the same terrorists. We have common challenges and we can do much more together in fighting terrorists and other criminals such as smugglers.”

For his part, Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, explained that the political dialogue was a product of communiqué signed last year between Nigeria and EU. The communiqué focused on security, corruption, prosperity, migration and human development.

Onyeama urged the EU and other partners to consider increasing investment in other areas beyond the oil sector, like agriculture and mining. “The important thing is value addition in processing, packaging. All is important to provide employment to Nigerian youths. We are in the process of diversification away from oil, and we are looking to an important trading partner and we naturally looked to the EU to explore trade opportunity to our country.”

Anita Fatunji