His Excellency Saad A.Al-Asousi is the Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to Nigeria. Al-Asousi has been in Nigeria since 2009 when his home government named him his country’s envoy to Nigeria. He spoke with Assistant Editor Onyedi Ojiabor. Excerpts:
Your Excellency, how has it been since you came to Nigeria as Kuwait Ambassador to Nigeria?
Kuwait has no Embassy in Nigeria before 2009. But relationship between Kuwait and Nigeria started more than 40 years ago.
So why did you decide to open your embassy in Nigeria now?
Over 40 years ago, Ahmadu Bello flew to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and he asked them to support him to build the first school in Kaduna. Kuwait decided to donate to start the building of the school in Kaduna in 1965. We have been here since then. We have good relationship between Kuwait and Nigeria. Our brothers in Nigeria support us in different international organisations all over the world. We are member of more than 36 organisations all over the world. The government of Kuwait and the Nigerian government are cooperation in different ways to promote the relation between the two brotherly countries. I was appointed Ambassador of Kuwait to Nigeria in 2009. Since I was appointed I started working very hard to promote the relation with Nigeria . Since I came to this country I started to establish good relationship with the government and people of Nigeria , the media and universities. I have visited many universities. We are working to sign agreements between Kuwait and Nigeria . We have signed the first two agreements in the field of international investment between both countries. We are in the process of signing five more agreements between Kuwait and Nigeria . The second point is that we have requested our brothers in Nigeria to give us a piece of land to build our embassy here in Nigeria . We are in the process of building our chancery in Abuja . We are working to concretise our relationship with Nigeria . We are also working in different fields including economic field, which is the most important thing to us. We have held the first investment conference in Kuwait which we called “Invest in Nigeria .” We invited many people in Kuwait , we followed up with sensitization of the people. We used the media to sensitize the people of Kuwait about investment in Nigeria .
What was the out come of the investment conference?
Because of the situation in Nigeria after October 2010, most people were a little bit worried about security issue in Nigeria . But this doesn’t mean anything. Any time some people express anxiety, I use the media to tell them they can come to Nigeria to invest. I tell them their investment is safe, the country is safe, and that hundreds of companies are investing in Nigeria from South Africa, Europe, from America. I tell them that their money is safe, they are safe, and that they can come and invest and do their business. From this point, I want to invite all our brothers from both countries to find the chance to invest and there are a lot of chances in both countries. So the relation between Kuwait and Nigeria is strong and we are working very hard to further promote the relation. I think that we can make the relation much more stronger within few months because the Nigerian Ambassador to Kuwait and my humble-self are working very hard to promote this brotherly relation between both countries. This is the most important thing I can say now, I promise that within few months, we get our brother Ambassador of Nigeria in Kuwait to invite the officials from both countries to exchange visits to promote our relation and to show people all over the world that Kuwait is here to reach our goals and to do something good, and to concretise our relation between both governments.
You have been in Nigeria for about three years. By the time you conclude your stay, what would you want to be remembered for as the first Kuwait Ambassador to Nigeria?
I think the most important thing as the first Ambassador of Kuwait appointed to this country, relationship between both countries started in my time. Two, in my time the first agreement was signed between both countries. There was no agreement of any sort before 2009 between Kuwait and Nigeria . So in my duty as the Kuwait Ambassador to Nigeria we signed two agreements and we are planning to sign five more agreements. Most importantly I am working for our brothers from both sides to come and invest in Nigeria and in Kuwait . I was in a meeting and most of our brothers in the Foreign Affairs they know very well that we are working to show all over the world that there is a fruitful relationship between Kuwait and Nigeria.
You talked about the security challenge facing Nigeria . Is there any way your country can assist Nigeria in the effort to address the challenge?
I don’t think that Kuwait will have the power to do anything. We as a nation, we are a very small country. Kuwait is not in a position to support in the field of addressing security challenge. But we hope and pray not to see more security issues in Nigeria . We believe this thing can be solved. But it is not in our power to help our brother nation in this field. If we can and we have the power we will do it because we don’t want to see any of our brothers have any security issue. This is because when you have these issues, it will create difficulties with everything you can think of because they are one chain.
You spoke about some political re-engineering taking place in your country when you visited Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim in Abuja . Can you let us into some of these especially constitution amendment in your country?
Regarding the situation in the last three weeks in Kuwait , it is a very long story. According to Kuwait constitution, the parliament of Kuwait was dissolved by the Emir of Kuwait because there was no cooperation between the government and the parliament. So, the Emir of Kuwait took a decision to dissolve the parliament. The period between the dissolved parliament and calling for a new election it is about one and half month. This period, according to the Kuwait Constitution, the Emir, the Ruler has the right to issue decree. We faced difficulty with the three elections in Kuwait , because there is a group that came to the parliament to take up some issues. During election, each Kuwaiti has four candidates. But we have taken a decision to ensure one man one vote. Each voter has the right to vote for one candidate instead of four candidates. Democracies all over the world have the some system of one man one vote. One man one vote is nothing new with Kuwait . We are not creating something new. What we are doing is according to the wish of the majority in parliament and democracies all over the world. And according to the constitution of Kuwait the new parliament which we will have can approve or reject what the Ruler mentioned. The parliament can vote and say one man one vote, we don’t accept it, we need one man four votes or three or two votes for one man. This is left to the new parliament to decide.
Essentially, under the new rule, each voter chooses only one candidate instead of four. There are 397 candidates for the 50-seat parliament according to the election affairs electorate. For us in Kuwait , we have decided to invest in Kuwaiti citizen. The most important thing that the Kuwaiti Government decided to invest in is to give a very good education to the citizens. It is very important to invest in your citizens, give them good education, housing, good health system. The Kuwaiti Government takes care of the citizens from birth until he goes back to the grave. The government gives you free education, free health care, housing; the government supports you or if you want to buy a house the government gives you a loan without interest to buy a house. If you want to marry, the government gives you loan without interest to marry. The government gives you opportunity to work any where and if you are not working with the government and you are working with the private sector, the government supports the private sector to pay you a good salary. The government supports the private sector to give you good salary to Kuwaiti citizens working in that sector. We are Kuwaiti, we feel we are proud, from our government we are proud that we are doing all these things because we feel we are honoured to be Kuwaitis. And I feel that all our brothers in Nigeria are honoured to be Nigerians because they are working for Nigeria . For me as a Kuwaiti whenever I meet any media person I’m proud that I am Kuwaiti.
You also spoke about your country’s relationship with the African Union (AU). In what ways is Kuwait assisting the growth of AU?
The State of Kuwait got the power from the last African-Arab Summit that took place in Libya because, according to the arrangement, the summit should hold in one African country and another summit in Arab world. The last summit was in Libya and they decided that the next summit will take place in Kuwait . The summit will take place next year in Kuwait . We believe that most of our brothers in Africa will explore the opportunities of the summit. The summit has a laudable agenda. We will use the summit to continue to promote the relationship between Africa and the Arab world. Kuwait is currently supporting more than 40 African countries through the Kuwaiti Fund. Through the Fund we build schools, we build houses and hospitals. Through the Fund we build roads and other things. While at the summit in Libya we requested that we want to be observer in the African Union. Immediately we were accepted and we are now a member of the African Union as observer. The Head of State of Kuwait was invited to the last summit in July. He attended and gave his speech in the AU. He told them that Kuwait will donate to build the new African Union building. We are supporting and we have good relation with our brother African countries. We are assisting in agriculture, and building hospitals through the Kuwaiti Fund. The Kuwaiti Fund started working in Africa since early 1960s. We support and build schools, hospitals and equip them. With the Fund we are cementing our relation. With the Fund we have good relation with African countries and I believe that this relation will continue after and grow even stronger after the African-Arab Summit in Kuwait because the relationship will have legal framework to work together.
As the Dean of Arab Ambassadors in Nigeria, what are your functions?s
I have acted as Dean just for one week. So I’m one week old as Dean. I took over from my brother Ambassador of Saudi Arabia who is going to leave us within two weeks. As the Dean of Arab Ambassadors, my time is going to be very tight. It is my duty to discuss with our brothers in Africa . At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I will speak on behalf of Arab Ambassadors. African Ambassadors have their own Dean, Asian Ambassadors have their own Dean. All the Deans hold meetings; if there are issues of difficulty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would want to discuss with us. The Dean also tries to help any new ambassador if he needs any thing.
Again, you have been in Nigeria for about three years meeting and interacting with Nigerians. What is your assessment of Nigeria and Nigerians?
From the day I entered Nigeria , the people welcomed me. They told me some times I’m going to face some difficulty but frankly speaking, since I came to this country, I have not faced any difficulty. Life is going on smoothly. We don’t face much difficulty’. Nigeria is a very important country in the region. Nigeria is very strong and the country has a lot of chances for investment. From this country I call people to come and visit and see. Don’t listen, visit and see. You are listening about Nigeria , it is different, you are reading in the media, it is different. Visit the country and see the people. Come and see how the people will stay with you. I just say these things. The first day I met the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he told me ‘Mr Ambassador, this is my telephone number and my door is open’. You can’t find this all over the world that a Minister of Foreign Affairs will tell you, ‘Mr. Ambassador, if you need any thing, my door is open, this is my telephone number, any time you want to meet me, just give me a call’. For an Ambassador to find an official to be very close to you and you can contact him at any time, I believe that it is difficult to find that any where. I have been in Nigeria for three years now, when ever we meet any official they welcome you and tell you our door is open for any diplomat. They want to create a relationship, they want to promote this country, they want to do something for this country because they feel they are Nigerians.
