OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 9.45am.
SOUTH Africa and Nigeria, two of Africa’s most powerful countries, must work together to uplift the continent and promote democracy, Nigeria’s visiting Vice President Atiku Abubakar said in Pretoria Wednesday.
He arrived in South Africa earlier on Wednesday for a four-day visit centred around the meeting of a commission, intended to deepen ties between the countries, the largest economies in sub-Saharan Africa.
The visit is expected to produce a number of agreements, including ones on avoidance of double taxation, scientific and technological cooperation and education.
If finalised, the agreements will be signed by Zuma and Abubakar in Cape Town on Saturday, when his visit ends.
Abubakar is accompanied by his ministers of agriculture, industry and commerce and government officials from the justice, education, science and solid minerals ministries.
He said that South Africa and Nigeria have both freed their people from undemocratic governments and must now join forces to promote the economic recovery of Africa.
“If people have basic economic and social rights, they can muster the strength to participate in the renewal of Africa,” he said in an address at the opening session of the commission.
“African hopes are … pinned on us,” Abubakar said.
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said that Nigeria and South Africa “have shown that democracy, an essential ingredient to achieve sustainable development, can work in Africa. The vote of confidence expressed in the heads of state of our countries by the nations of the south at the recent South-South Summit … reflects many expectations on us to provide the leadership in the challenges that face developing nations,” he added.
Zuma led a 40-member South African delegation to Nigeria for a previous round of bilateral talks last October as part of efforts to increase cooperation between the countries.