The founding member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) praised the president, stating that all Nigerians should commend him for not seeking membership in the emerging coalition.
During the 15th BRICS Summit held in South Africa, the organization admitted several countries, including Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, as part of its expansion strategy. This led to speculation that Nigeria’s application might have been declined due to not meeting certain essential membership criteria.
However, in a statement released on Sunday in Abuja and provided to journalists, Okechukwu asserted that Nigeria would be better off maintaining its long-standing diplomatic stance as a non-aligned nation.
He noted that he was thrilled when the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, recently cleared the air and said, “So far, we have not applied for the membership of BRICS. And it is majorly informed by the fact that my principal, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a true democrat that believes in consensus building.”
The APC Chieftain argued that Nigeria is better maintaining her age-long diplomatic policy and standpoint.
He added: “Whereas one has nothing against Brazil, Russia, India, China nor our brothers South Africa that make up the BRICS; however Nigeria stands to benefit hugely if we maintain our age-old standpoint of multilateral diplomacy.”
He pointed out the worldview origin of BRICS, saying, “records have it that to spur economic development outside the Breton wood system, the BRICS, a bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and later South Africa, was formed. Ironically, the acronym was coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs and 2006, the bank opened an equity fund for investors in the BRICS. The group had since established New Development Bank (NDB).”
On the proposal that Nigeria’s membership of BRICS has economic growth as the main goal, Okechukwu argued that whilst economic growth is important, it should not be at the expense of Nigeria’s cherished freedom and rule of law, which the leadership of the bloc abhors.
“Whilst one agrees that BRICS may engender economic growth; however neither the West nor Russia or China is Father Xmas, therefore our destiny is in our hands. And most importantly we cannot gloss over our cherished freedom and rule of law which maybe in jeopardy in the BRICS alliance”.
On a different note, as of the most recent calculation, the New Development Bank (NDB), a multinational lending institution established in 2014 and headquartered in Shanghai, reported assets totaling $25 billion in 2022, which is significantly less than one-tenth of the World Bank’s overall assets. Okechukwu further clarified that this had not generated substantial economic growth.
In light of this, he made an earnest plea to President Tinubu to uphold Nigeria’s current multilateral diplomatic strategy. This approach allows Nigeria the freedom to engage with various blocs both presently and in the future while safeguarding our national interests from envy or undue influence.
