Why Nigeria, Algeria continue Trans-saharan projects despite insecurity – Envoy

Mohammed Abdullahi Mabdul is the Nigerian Ambassador to Algeria. In this interview, he speaks about the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Algeria, the Nigeria-Algeria Trans-saharan highway and Gas Pipeline Projects, their potency of providing jobs to counter insecurity and students scholarship exchanges.  Excerpt

How will you describe the trade relationship between Nigeria and Algeria?

The trade relationship between Nigeria and Algeria has a very long history. Even before the colonial era, there was trans-saharan trade between the two countries.

In recent times, Nigeria and Algeria signed Bi-national Commission sometime in 2002, where both countries spelt out how they will relate to bring out development, investments and trade between them.

Under the agreement, the two sides, headed by the presidents of the two countries or represented by their foreign ministers, coordinated government agencies and private sectors to look into areas of mutual interests for both countries. 

They also identified and signed agreements based on which advantage each country has over the other so that they will engage in trading activities and investments in the two countries.

What other bilateral agreements did Nigeria sign with Algeria? 

We have a bilateral education agreement, where the two countries have agreed to exchange students. Presently, the Algerian side have provided scholarships or rather available spaces for students coming from Nigeria. 

In the last seven years or so, a lot of Nigerians have been going there to study. We have a population of over 120 students who are studying there. Some of them have started graduating in the last one or two years. In their first year, they study French (because French and Arabic are the official languages) and then subsequently, depending on the course, they do the first degree and sometimes are given the chance to do the second degree before returning to Nigeria. However, Algeria is yet to benefit from the Nigerian side. 

Another area of bilateral agreement is the bilateral Air Service Agreement. Since Nigeria has no operational national carrier now, the Algerian side has Air Algeria that flies to many countries, so under this agreement, it has been decided that they will introduce routes to Abuja and Lagos so that it will cut down the distance of travel and encourage business interaction between our two countries.

For example, if you want to travel to Algeria now, there are two common routes which most Nigerians fly. You either go through Turkey and connect to Algeria or Qatar and connect to Algiers. 

If you go through Turkey, you pass through Istanbul which is six hours and then fly for three hours to Algiers, making nine hours. If you take the second route through Qatar Airways, you will spend 6 hours to Doha, then another 5 hours to reach Algiers, making 11 hours. 

But, if you have a direct flight from Nigeria, you will only spend four hours to arrive Algiers. So, you can imagine the reduction in cost, time and even the logistics involved if this airlink becomes a reality. It’s COVID-19 that delayed the take off but it has been signed already, and we are hopeful that it will come into use during my tenure as ambassador. 

You said Algeria has offered over a hundred scholarship to Nigerian students, how do you feel that Nigeria has not played its own part? 

I’m not so worried because the truth is that the literacy rate in Algeria is very high. The statistics available so far indicates that over 87 percent of Algerians are literate and they go through the school system right from their primary, secondary schools to university under the sponsorship of the government, as such, there is no disadvantage on the side of Algeria.

We are actually the ones that really need their facilities to raise our level of education in Nigeria. So far, they have not shown any worries about their students not coming here. In the absence of their students coming into Nigeria, there are other intellectual activities and collaborations within the university system, where the Algerian lecturers and academics partner with Nigerian universities for research. I think that is filling the gap.  

In what specific areas of investment do you think business will thrive between the two countries? 

The two countries have identified what we described as development corridor projects. The importance of these projects is not only to improve trade and investment between Nigeria and Algeria but to carry along other countries in Africa to integrate their economies. 

For example, we cannot shy away from individual countries making progress in Africa because we have a lot of refugee crises, because of war, famine and so on. So, it is always better to have an all-inclusive economic system that our sister African countries will benefit from. 

Three important projects are now ongoing. One is the trans-Saharan highway, which is a trading route that will start from Lagos through the northern states of Nigeria to Niger Republic to Algiers. Apart from this direct route, there is access route within that system that go through Chad and Mali. Also, there is another road network which will be linked into this master plan, altogether, the length of the route is 9,900km.

Surprisingly, about 9,000km have been completed or at the stage of completion now, which means 90 per cent of the road is already achieved. We are hoping that very soon it will be launched. 

Then, in order to drive these trading activities to work properly, we have also agreed that three deep sea ports are going to be constructed within North Africa and West Africa – one in Lagos, another one in Algeria, in a port city of Maghnia, and the third in a city called Gabes in Tunisia. 

So, these three deep sea ports will be constructed with the intention that goods coming from Europe and outside Europe will pass through the deep-sea ports and be evacuated and transported through the trans-saharan road network that passes through Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. This network of economic activities will create a lot of jobs and business opportunities for the countries I mentioned.

Secondly, there is the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline. Algeria has had gas infrastructure in the country since the 80s, which is over 2000km. It supplies gas throughout the country and also laid pipelines from the Algerian port city of Nora across the Mediterranean Sea, to several European countries. 

Algeria has the fourth largest gas reserve in the world but the gas demand is so high that it could not meet up, so they now want to collaborate with Nigeria through the construction of the Nigeria-Algeria gas pipeline to join their system at Hassan Rlam so that Nigeria will argument the gap and market its product. 

All the projects you mentioned sound very viable for the two countries but don’t you think the security situation in the Sahel will be a hindrance for them to thrive? 

Well, I agree with you, but it’s even the reason why Nigeria and Algeria had to continue with these efforts. During some conferences and seminars held concerning security issues in the region, it has all been agreed that the major problems causing the insecurity is poverty and unemployment. 

Frustrations that people go through for lack of decent jobs and desertification which is making survival very difficult in some areas have made them became vulnerable to being recruited to any kind of criminality like drug trafficking and terrorism. But, as soon as there is prosperity, there is hope for people to have decent jobs to do and earn their living. 

In the areas where they don’t have fertile land, if the trade activities are going on, like we now have African Continental Free Trade Areas in most parts of the continent, goods and services can be transported there, and people can buy and sell, and through that, they can earn a living, and criminality will go down. 

So, it’s even more dangerous for us to be afraid that this project may be affected by the action of terrorism or other acts of criminalities. Rather, we should have more hope that once these projects are created, it will create boom within our societies and people will not be attracted to criminal activities.

Countries in Africa are demanding for patent rights to produce COVID-19 vaccines locally, is Algeria part of this clamour? 

I think the Algerian example will serve as a guide to other African countries. When this COVID-19 pandemic started, Algeria like any other country started making partnership arrangements with other countries where they will be able to get vaccines, the first set of vaccines they got was the 500,000 doses they received from Russia. The two countries have been long standing partners in their relationship and based on Algeria’s statistics, they believed that the vaccine coming from Russia was very potent and as such they made a decision that substantial part of their vaccine will come from Russia. 

Now, vaccination is ongoing and they have achieved about 10 percent of coverage within the population. But, part of their agreement with Russian was to establish a production facility in Algeria so that it will service Algeria and countries in Africa, who may be in need and cannot easily get supply from other parts of the world.

In September 2021, the facility was commissioned, and they are now producing vaccines for local use and have also informed embassies that it will be produced in sufficient quantities to be donated to some African countries or a source of supply for the African countries that are interested.