You Are A Rich Nation, Stop Seeking For Financial Assistance - EU To Nigeria

According to the European Union Ambassador, Mr. Michel Arrion, declares that Nigeria is rich and does not need any increased financial assistance.

Mr. Michel is the European Union (EU) ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS. He said this in Abuja while delivering a lecture organised by the IBB Golf Club, with the theme: ‘40 years of European Union in Nigeria: Lessons learned and the way forward’.

He said, the EU was not promising further assistance to Nigeria however said that the country remains EU key partner in view of the role it plays in global affairs. He stressed that the union would scale up its efforts towards the country’s institutional, political and economic development for a more prosperous future, but said Nigeria could not be described as poor because it has enough resources to meet its developmental needs.

Mr. Arrion called for a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth to ensure growth and stability and unleash its enormous economic potentials. He also noted that the combined aide to Nigeria was about ten per cent of the country’s annual budget. He said the Official Development Assistance (ODA) flow in Nigeria is about 2.5 billion dollars yearly, which corresponds roughly to about 10 per cent of the federal budget (N7.3 trillion or $24 billion).

In his words, “We are not offering more financial support, we are proposing more political and policy dialogue, technical assistance, capacity building, training, transfer of technology. “We also proposing more advocacies for more private investments and other innovative sources of funding.”