The 10 Goodies President Buhari Brought Back To Nigeria From Sochi, Russia

By Bunmi Awoyemi, Ph.D

1. NNPC signed an MOU with Russian Mega Oil Company, Lukeoil to do Joint Venture deep offshore Crude Oil exploration and production and for the revamping of the three oil refineries in Nigeria.

2. Russia to enter into the Nigeria rail market via the Eastern Corridor ( Lagos to Calabar line) and the Portharcourt Maiduguri line. Russia will offer, design, construction, management, and maintenance of railway infrastructure in the two lines. The Calabar line is 1,400 kms long.

3. NNPC signed an MOU with Gazprom, the Russian Gas giant for the development of Nigeria’s enormous gas potential and infrastructure.

4. Russia accepted to use a government to government approach to complete the abandoned and uncompleted Ajaokuta Steel rolling mill. This facility is 60km in size, has 40 production plants, internal rail network and can produce 10m tons of all kinds of steel per year. Over $8b has so far been spent on the project. The project is 40 years old.

5. Russia agreed to supply 12 Attack Helicopters to Nigeria for the fight against terrorism.

6. Russia to work with the Ministry of Defence to modernize the armed forces, enhance government to government procurement of Russian military hardware, training of military personnel, etc

7. Resolving the production issues and disputes with the ALSCON Russian owners. ALSCON is a producer of Aluminium products.

8.Because Russia is ranked as the biggest producer of wheat in the world, Russia has agreed to help Nigeria ramp up its production of wheat. Nigeria produces 100k tons of wheat but imports 5m tons of wheat. The aim of the Russian assistance is to greatly increase local production of wheat in Nigeria and reduce imports drastically to help save Nigeria the foreign exchange it uses to buy the annual import of 5m tons.

9. Russia will provide security and technical support to Nigeria to stamp out piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

10. Russia will help provide geological prospecting of Nigeria’s vast solid minerals deposits with a view to exploiting them.