President Lula’s press statement on occasion of State Visit by President of Nigeria

Your Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mr. Bola Tinubu. Ministers accompanying the President of Nigeria. Brazilian ministers who are attending this meeting with Nigeria.

My dear friends,

This is President Tinubu’s third visit to Brazil in less than a year.

He came to Rio de Janeiro for the G20 and BRICS Summits.

Today, I am honored to receive him for a very special visit.

The last time a Nigerian Head of State was in Brasília was in 2009.

For many years, Nigeria was our largest commercial partner in Africa.

However, in the last decade, this exchange has been drastically reduced.

From 10 billion dollars in 2014, it went down to 2 billion dollars in 2024.

This did not happen by chance. During the last administrations, Brazil distanced itself from Africa.

The exchange between two of the largest economies in Latin America and Africa must be much more substantial.

When President Tinubu and I met at the margins of the African Union Summit in 2024, we decided that this situation needed to change.

In the past few months, our teams have been in intensive contact.

Minister Mauro Vieira [Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs] was in Abuja in March.

Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin went to Nigeria in June for the bilateral Strategic Dialogue Mechanism.

Two Nigerian ministers participated in the II Brazil-Africa Dialogue on Food Security, Fight Against Hunger and Rural Development, which we organized here in Brasília in May.

Today, we welcomed the expressive delegation of Nigerian ministers, parliamentarians, and businesspeople.

Throughout this period, we have signed several agreements in the fields of defense, agriculture and livestock, security, audiovisual production, trade and investments, tourism, and energy.

Today, we are signing another five agreements in the areas of culture, aviation services, science and technology, and political dialogue.

At a time when protectionism and unilateralism have been making a comeback, Nigeria and Brazil reaffirm their bet on free trade and productive integration.

We continue to be dedicated to building a world of peace, free from hegemonic impositions.

There are many possibilities for synergy between the world's two largest countries with Black populations.

Agriculture and livestock, oil and gas, fertilizers, aircraft, and machinery, among others, represent wide avenues for cooperation.

Increasing the direct connections between Nigeria and Brazil is another essential step to strengthen the ties between our societies.

We have approved the launch of a direct flight, to be operated by Nigeria’s largest airline company, Air Peace, between Lagos and São Paulo.

Encouraging Nigerians and Brazilians to experience the immense cultural and historical heritage we share is key to developing this bilateral partnership even further.

With its 230 million inhabitants and its vast and rich territory, Nigeria is a BRICS partner and an important actor in the debates regarding the reform of global governance institutions.

Nigeria has all the credentials to become a full member of the G20. We share very similar positions regarding the role of the Global South in a multipolar order.

Our regions must be adequately represented in a reformed United Nations Security Council.

We reaffirm our commitment to multilateralism with the World Trade Organization, directed by Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Our concern over combating organized crime, terrorism, and international drug trafficking was also at the center of today’s meeting.

One of the perverse consequences of globalization is the articulation of criminal groups that operate beyond national borders.

No country will be able to dismantle transnational crime in isolation.

Criminality is evolving at an unprecedented pace, requiring urgent and coordinated multilateral actions.

This was the message I gave to the countries that are part of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization last Friday in Bogotá.

Nigeria was one of the first countries to support Brazil’s victorious candidacy for INTERPOL’s General Secretariat.

This semester, Brazil will designate a Federal Police Attaché to work from Abuja with the goal of deepening coordination between our countries.

Strengthening public security also entails protecting nature.

I noted to President Tinubu that my commitment to achieving zero illegal deforestation by 2030 requires acting to repress all kinds of illicit environmental activities.

Nigeria also shares the urgency we need to combat climate change and preserve the health of the planet.

Africa is the region that produces the fewest greenhouse gases, yet it is among the most affected by the devastating consequences of global warming.

I hope to count on the expressive participation of African countries at COP30.

The existing international instruments are insufficient to effectively reward those who protect the forests, their biodiversity, and the peoples who live in, care for, and depend on these biomes.

For this reason, I invited President Tinubu to support the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, which Brazil aims to launch during COP30 to provide financial compensation to countries that are home to tropical forests.

My dear President Tinubu, my dear colleagues who have come from Nigeria for this small gathering with the Brazilian Government.

It is important to say, before the eyes of the Brazilian and Nigerian press, that Brazil has a very peculiar concern regarding our relationship with Africa and the entire African continent.

Brazil is aware of what 350 years of slavery to which the Black African people were subjected to in our country mean for our history, our culture, our way of being, our skin color, our joy, our music.

And the only way we can pay for it cannot be measured in terms of money. It must be measured in terms of solidarity; it must be measured in terms of political, economic, and cultural alignment. Because Brazil must help Africa through technology transfers, through knowledge transfers, and everything we have learned here which has been successful. Particularly in the area of agriculture, Brazil has an obligation to support the African continent to reach the same level of development we have achieved here.

We have been thinking about this for a long time. And then it did not move forward. But now, President Tinubu, you may rest assured that your visit to our country today means that Brazil will definitely return to the African continent.

Not as a country that expects to establish a hegemonic relationship with others, but as a country that wants a relationship of solidary, fraternity, and equality, thinking about the growth of the African people and about the growth of the Brazilian people.

For this reason, you may rest assured that today is a very important day for myself, for my country; and that it will certainly be a very important day in the history of Nigeria.

Thank you very much.