PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES, Abuja | Thursday
ONCE rivals, South Africa and Nigeria are now partners in economic development, with South Africans leading the new foreign investors in Nigeria’s almost untapped non-oil economy, officials say.
“There is a consensus in South Africa that there is a tremendous potential in Nigeria. It is still uncharted waters, but the potential is there,” a senior South African diplomat said.
During the apartheid years, Nigeria was a strong critic of South Africa. And when Nigeria was run by military ruler Sani Abacha, former president Nelson Mandela was one of his most prominent opponents.
But with South Africa under black majority rule and since Nigeria regained civilian rule last year, relations between the two major powers of sub-Saharan Africa have bloomed.
SA President Thabo Mbeki will be guest of honour when Nigeria celebrates 40 years of independence this weekend, starting a four-day official visit from October 1 to 4 with the independence day celebrations and continuing with meetings with business leaders and policy makers.
In 1998, total two-way trade amounted to R730m ($104m) and then jumped to R1.7bn ($242m) in 1999 because of increased Nigerian oil exports. But with a market of 120 million Nigerians untapped and the rich resources of both countries available, the potential is “enormous”, officials from the two sides say.
SA cable television network M-Net and its subsidiary Supersport, widely watched in Nigeria, last year became the first wholly foreign companies to be quoted on the small but growing Nigerian Stock Exchange.
South Africa’s MTN is currently bidding for one of four mobile telecoms licences and SA electricity company Eskom will assist Nigeria’s electricity corporation NEPA in repairing and running the crumbling national grid.
South African Airways will at the end of October start operating joint flights with Nigeria Airways on the lucrative Lagos-New York route. And South Africa’s petroleum group Sasol is also looking with interest at Nigeria’s petrochemicals firm NOLCHEM and plans to privatise the state-run oil refineries. – AFP