Nigeria “stands ready to deepen cooperation” with the EU across migration, defence and security, and economically, the country’s foreign minister Yusuf Tuggar told reporters in Abuja on Monday (23 March).
Speaking after unveiling a readmission and return agreement with Brussels for Nigerians who claims for asylum had been rejected in Europe, Tuggar and the EU’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas touted the prospect of a new era of cooperation between the EU and Africa’s largest economy, including a €288m funding package for Nigeria’s healthcare system.
Yet despite its size and status as a member of the expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group of countries, Nigeria has rarely been a major diplomatic player and has had a limited relationship with the EU.
Back in 2023, the European External Action Service earmarked Nigeria as one of four countries, one from each continent, who could be ‘key strategic partners’ as the bloc sought to boost its diplomatic influence compared to Russia in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
When those talks were launched, officials in Brussels warned, in a leaked paper seen by EUobserver back in 2023, that “Nigeria’s perception of the EU as a closed space with strict visa policies, focus on return and readmission, and lack of openness on legal migration” would prove a challenge to any agreement.
Migration control key priority
The EU-Nigeria talks initially moved slowly. It is migration control, and specifically the returns and readmission agreement, that has been the commission’s main priority.
In return for Nigeria taking back potentially thousands of its rejected asylum seekers and economic migrants, Brussels reckons that it can offer better access to the EU market, particularly for agricultural products, as well as more EU investment, particularly in energy and transport infrastructure.
Kallas said that Nigeria faces “heightened risk from Islamic terrorism” and that cooperation with the EU made “tactical and strategic sense”.
Earlier this year, the two sides opened a peace, security and defence dialogue that could pave the way for a formal defence and security deal.
On Tuesday (24 March), Kallas is due to sign a defence and cooperation agreement with Ghana, the EU’s first with an African state.
Kallas also offered the promise of billions of euros in investment via the bloc’s Global Gateway programme and an EU/Nigeria business forum held in Lagos in June.
She added that officials were working on a science and technology agreement that would give Nigeria access to the multi-billion euro Horizon Europe research programme.
The commission is also keen to add Nigeria to the list of countries with whom it has a ‘cash for minerals access’ pact, with Kallas telling reporters that “we definitely have an interest and are working to find a solution” on critical minerals.
However, president Bola Tinubu’s government has built close relations with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in recent years.
Like the EU as a whole, Macron has been seeking allies in west Africa after a French-led European military force in the neighbouring Sahel region, intended to counter Islamic terrorism, was ordered to leave by new military regimes in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
The EU’s diplomatic engagement with the Sahelian juntas has been minimal. Last week, Germany withdrew its diplomatic staff from Niger over concerns that they could be targeted by Islamic terror groups.
Meanwhile, the military regime in Niamey and its neighbours in the Alliance of Sahel States have condemned as an ‘outrage’ a European Parliament resolution adopted last week demanding the release of former president Mohamed Bazoum, who has been detained since the 2023 coup that removed him from power.