WorldStage Newsonline– The government of Belarus has been urged to seek ways of exploiting the huge investment opportunities that abound in all sectors of its economy and in Nigeria.
The President of the Alumni Association of Belarusniki in Nigeria, Mr Muktar Usman in his remark at the 2nd Annual General Meeting of the group in Lagos urged the Republic of Belarus to seize the opportunity of the establishment of the association in Nigeria to seek means of benefiting from the huge investment potentials in education, commerce and trade.
The Belarusniki is a non-political, non-religious and non-ethnic association of graduates who studied in the Republic of Belarus.
Usman said that the development would go a long way in creating not just job opportunities, but also open more avenues for wealth creation for the both countries.
He said, “As professionals in various persuasions in Nigeria and in the diaspora, we the members of Belaruniski wish to promote our economic, socio-cultural and business ties between our country and the Republic of Belarus.
“We are quite many in number, cut across all professions.
“We are multi-disciplinary and the purpose for this get together which is second in the series, is for us to come together and rub minds and xray what we have done so far as a group.
“As an association that is still very young, we have our own challenges.
“But that notwithstanding, the first thing we did was to try and identify areas where we can intervene in the country’s economy and then task ourselves financially to drive our plans.
“As you know, our core mandate is giving back to the society, and so it was also while deliberating on what to do for the society that we arrived at looking at ways of ameliorating the impact of activities of the insurgents in the country.
“To this effect, we had identified an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp somewhere in Abuja where we took our members to, saw the people there and identified their needs.’’
Usman said members of the association had tasked themselves financially and acquired materials as well as food items, which had been handed over to the camp.
According to him, issues of adequate funding, however, remain a major constraint for the association in its activities.
“You know that for one to be able to operate maximally and get huge results, there has to be enough funds.
“It is only when we achieve this that we will be able to take the association to the next level,” he said.
Usman said the association was planning to come up with some projects in the areas of education and cultural exchange.
According to him, such project is part of the association’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS) and would go a long way in developing big business opportunities.
“We are looking at some exchange programmes between Nigeria and Belarus, whereby we find means of attracting some Belarusian students to come and study various courses in universities across Nigeria and vice versa.
“We can also do exchange programmes with some of their professors as well,’’ Usman said.
Counsellor in the Belarusian Embassy in Nigeria, Mr Alexsandr Lurasheriel who was at the event said that already, his country was about signing a Memorandum of Understanding between its Ministry of Education and Nigeria’s Ministry of Education.
According to him, the development will strengthen the ties between both countries.
He said that no fewer than 700 Nigerian students were given placements in Belarusian universities in 2016.
“Belarus holds the heritage of Soviet Union and we have managed to preserve all the good traditions, especially in education.
“We normally design courses in different spheres, such as Engineering and Information Technology, but first we develop courses for English-speaking foreigners.
“Our education is of high standard and cheaper than what is obtained in most European countries.’’
