The Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Okechukwu has expressed appreciation for President Bola Tinubu’s decision not to seek membership in the BRICS grouping of global economies.
During the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa, the alliance welcomed Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, along with other developing nations.
The inclusion of these countries led to speculation that Nigeria’s application might have been declined due to not meeting certain essential membership requirements, a claim strongly denied by the Nigerian Government.
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In a statement made available to news outlets on Sunday, Okechukwu, who is also a founding member of All Progressives Congress (APC), declared that Nigeria is better off maintaining her decades-old diplomatic standpoint as a non-aligned nation.
He stressed that he was thrilled when Vice President Kashim Shettima cleared the air on the speculations by stating categorically: “So far, we have not applied for the membership of BRICS.
“It is majorly informed by the fact that my principal, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a true democrat who believes in consensus building.”
“Whereas one has nothing against Brazil, Russia, India, China, or our brother South Africa that make up the BRICS; however, Nigeria stands to benefit hugely if we maintain our age-old standpoint of multilateral diplomacy.”
“Records have it that to spur economic development outside the Breton Wood system, the BRICS, a bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and later South Africa, was formed. Ironically, the acronym was coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs and in 2006, the bank opened an equity fund for investors in the BRICS. The group had since established the New Development Bank (NDB).”
On the proposal that Nigeria’s membership of BRICS has economic growth as the main goal, Okechukwu argued that whilst economic growth was important, it should not be at the expense of Nigeria’s cherished freedom and rule of law, which the leadership of the bloc abhors.
“Whilst one agrees that BRICS may engender economic growth; however neither the West nor Russia or China is Father Xmas. Therefore, our destiny is in our hands. Most importantly, we cannot gloss over our cherished freedom and rule of law, which may be in jeopardy in the BRICS alliance.
“Otherwise, at the last count, the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral lending institution set up in 2014 and based in Shanghai, had $25bn in recorded assets in 2022, less than a tenth of the World Bank’s total and not much economic growth was stimulated,” Okechukwu explained.
Accordingly, he appealed to President Tinubu to maintain Nigeria’s multilateral diplomatic strategy; which allows Nigeria today and in the future to operate and relate freely with all blocs and ultimately guard jealously, our national interest.
