Angola has declared the readiness to deepen its bilateral cooperation with Nigeria.
Téte António, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Angola, made this known during his visit to Nigeria on Wednesday in Abuja.
António was in Nigeria to deliver the Angolan President, João Lourenço’s invitation to President Bola Tinubu for the regular bilateral and multilateral consultations of African leaders slated for November in the Southern African country.
According to António who met with Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lourenço’s message has been delivered through Tuggar, to Tinubu.
“I do not know what is written, but I discussed with my counterpart. We talked about bilateral relations between Angola and Nigeria.
“We discussed how we will like to boost the diplomatic relations, in terms of the cooperation existing between our two countries, including the legal institutions we signed in the past.
This will enable both countries “to see how we are implementing them and to see which new ones we have, and we can bring in again.
It will also help on “how to create suitable environment for business people to ba a part of this bilateral ties existing between Angola and Nigeria.
“As ministers of foreign affairs and external relations, we discussed the peace and security situations in the Sahel and other parts, including Central Africa, Greek lakes and Sudan.”
He mentioned that such were actually challenges for the continent, as well as constitutional changes that happened in West Africa and recently, in Gabon.
He explained that their discussion centered on multilateral issues and on ways both countries could support each other in Angola-Nigeria multilateral systems.
“Bearing in mind that a very good relationship exists between our countries, we actually have duties as ministers of foreign affairs to deepen ties.
“We also discussed ways we can make diplomatic relations of Angola and Nigeria not only matter of diplomats and politicians, but matter of people, including the business community.
“We have a very vibrant Nigerian economy in Angola which is very active in helping the country to rebuild itself of 27 years of war and they are contributing a lot.
“We are certainly going to work closely together, to also make sure we facilitate tackling issues such as the visas for business to business community.
“Certainly, in our next meeting we will plan; today we have discussed the joint commission, this is where we go and review everything, also for business forum between Angola and Nigeria,” he said.
The envoy assured of the provision of suitable environment for business communities to interact and encourage people to know more of each other’s national interests.
The Angolan minister, however, allayed fears about differences in language between the two countries as communication barrier.
He said: “We can always find a common language to speak and the common language are the ties.”
