By Joshua Odeyemi

 

The governments of Nigeria and Kazakhstan are currently exploring areas of cooperation in agriculture, trade and information technologies.

 

At a business conference in Abuja on Sunday, facilitated by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Kazakhstan’s 30-member delegation from its public and private sectors explored several areas of cooperation with Nigeria.

 

Speaking at the conference, the Minister of the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said the ministry had already developed a strategic blueprint with six pillars, adding that each of these pillars is a potential area of collaboration and partnership with the Kazakhstan team.

 

“In particular, pillar number one speaks about knowledge, capacity building and talents. I’m aware that Kazakhstan is quite advanced in terms of its knowledge base in ICT. So this is a big area that we can partner,” the Minister represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Faruk Yabo, said.

 

“We already have the world’s largest capacity-building initiative that we are running, which is the three million technical talents by 2027. This is intended to train Nigerians in technical talent so that at least 1.5 million of them will be able to work in Europe and the remaining ones could be here.”

 

He also said the two countries were looking to cooperate in artificial intelligence, adding that Nigeria had just finished drafting its artificial intelligence strategy.

 

Besides, the minister called for cooperation in the development of digital infrastructure.

 

On his part, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, who highlighted the giant strides made so far in the agriculture sector by the current administration, said Nigeria could collaborate with Kazakhstan in many areas of the sector.

 

He said: “We’re meeting with them on Tuesday at 2 o’clock, and we will talk more and elaborately on some of the opportunities that exist between Nigeria and Kazakhstan in terms of the agricultural space.

 

“We are not asking only for them to come and invest. We are also asking for us to partner with them. What is it that they need? We have products that we have in abundance here.”

 

The Kazakhstan head of delegation, Alibek Kuantyrov, said this is the first official delegation from Kazakhstan to Nigeria, adding that the huge young population of youths in the two countries provided an opportunity for cooperation.

 

“Our main trajectory is economic development, and we are the largest economy in Central Asia. So the same as Nigeria, Nigeria is a leader in the African continent.

 

“We see Nigeria as a very important partner and also the channel to go through the whole continent, and I think we can work together in terms of the transit of goods, trade and also making pure mutual investment in the field of minerals.

 

“We’re also an ICT and AI nation and also a FinTech nation, the sectors that are being developed in Nigeria and now we have managed and come to a conclusion that we can also open some FinTech and banking companies in the Nigerian markets.

 

“We can also exchange our ICT products and make an exchange of students because we have a target in our country to prepare at least 1 million IT specialists,” Kuantyrov a deputy foreign affairs minister said.

 

The Ooni of Ife said President Bola Tinubu should be credited for being proactive and making the business conference a reality, adding that it was a follow-up from the meeting between the presidents of the two countries in Abu Dhabi in January.

 

“They are very bullish. They are serious. They mean business. They’re here with their largest contingent, and they want to see how to explore so many things, and it will really help Nigerian youth in terms of employment. Look at another beautiful thing that came up today as a country. They’re changing their visa policy for them to accommodate Nigerians that are so talented in the area of tech, artificial intelligence, in area of writing codes.”