Nigeria, South Sudan sign agreement on education, oil, gas, trade, others

INNOCENT ODOH with agency report

Nigeria and South Sudan have signed a cooperation agreement on oil and gas, trade, education, health, culture, technical, among others.

Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, signed on behalf of Federal Government while his counterpart from South Sudan, Nhial Deng Nhial, signed for his country.

Onyeama said: “It is a general cooperation agreement that involves other areas but not security, the area of cooperation include economic, education, technical, health, sports, culture, among others.

“The agreement signed does not involve security and defence, we do not have any boot on ground in the place. It is just a guideline there will be specific agreements between the Ministries, Department and Agencies of the two countries.”

The minister, who said that Nigeria had always being committed to peace and stability of South Sudan since its inception, said Nigeria would continue to support the country till permanent peace is installed.

“We want to institutionalise our commitment and support to your country and we will be signing a cooperation agreement which we hope will be a framework that will enhance our deep relation.

“For us, we believe it will be a `win-win` for the two countries to have meaningful and profitable cooperation between us,” he said.

He said Nigeria involvement and engagement in South Sudan was deep because the two countries had a lot thing in common.

`’Nigeria is part of group of countries IGAD plus showing that with your country and the countries of IGAD are keen to have peace in the country.