Chancellor Scholz began his new official visit to Africa on Sunday, his third this year. He wants to expand economic relations with Nigeria and Ghana. Its first stop, in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, is aimed at importing German natural gas in addition to already existing contracts to import Nigerian oil. “The chancellor will be accompanied by a high-ranking business and cultural delegation,” the official statement said.

New alliances in economy and energy

The first point of the German Chancellor’s three-day trip is Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. In the most populous and powerful country of the African continent, the main focus is on expanding cooperation in the energy sector. In an interview with the German media, the chancellor said that he would like to add natural gas imports to the existing oil imports.

Nigeria is currently Germany’s second largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with German exports of €1 billion in 2022. German direct investment in Nigeria has reached €150 million in 2021, Scholz said.

He named infrastructure, energy, agriculture, mineral resources, communication technologies, transport and logistics as areas of German investment. Scholz will be accompanied by a business delegation. After talks in Abuja and the Nigerian economic metropolis of Lagos, the chancellor wants to go further to Ghana.

The chancellor’s renewed trip to Africa is part of the federal government’s strategy to seek new alliances in economic and energy policy. It is also the result of Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, which revealed Germany’s increased energy dependence on certain countries.

Gazans and refugees

Gas supplies have already played a prominent role in the chancellor’s first trip to Africa last year. In Senegal, Scholz proposed German participation in the development of gas fields off the country’s West African coast.

This has been heavily criticized by climate activists because it is a fossil fuel that generates climate-damaging gases. The federal government says gas is still needed to phase in the transition to renewables.

Nigeria has the largest gas reserves in Africa, Scholz told Nigerian newspaper The Punch, as quoted by Tagesschau.de.

“German companies are interested in supplying gas from Nigeria and hope to cooperate with Nigerian gas companies.” Germany also relies on joint initiatives to promote hydrogen production as the energy source of the future.

In the same interview, Scholz noted that Nigeria is a key partner for Germany both politically and economically. Apart from the energy sector, he appreciates the potential for increased cooperation in other sectors such as migration and security.

Reducing migration and repatriation agreements

Nigeria is one of the countries in West Africa that has large reserves of gold, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. Migration and smuggling routes pass through the territory between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic. Today, the entire region is one of the largest centers of Islamist terror in the world.

Nigeria itself, with its 220 million inhabitants, has proven to be one of the most stable democracies in a region wracked by coups since the end of a military dictatorship in 1999. But the country is slipping further and further into a dangerous mix of economic crisis and ever-increasing uncertainty. In the northeast, the state has had limited success in the fight against Islamist terrorist groups such as Boko Haram for a decade.

According to the UN, almost 3.5 million people are fleeing the country, and 300,000 Nigerian refugees are in neighboring Niger and Cameroon. The economic crisis with the highest inflation in the last 20 years worsens the situation. Experts warn of an even greater wave of migration from this country.

From January to September this year, Nigerians submitted more than 1,800 applications for asylum in Germany. The level of recognition of asylum status is relatively low. Nigeria is one of the countries with which Chancellor Scholz wants to facilitate, through agreements, the return of unrecognized asylum seekers with this status. The EU is also currently negotiating this with the Nigerian government.