The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio has advocated for a parliamentary cooperation between Nigeria and Italy.
Akpabio made the call on Tuesday when the Italian Ambassador to Nigeria, Roberto Mengoni paid him a courtesy visit in his office at the National Assembly, Abuja.
“For us in the Parliament, any agreement that can enable us have relationship with the Italian parliament will be welcome. So that we can have exchange programmes and peer review to see the best of what you are doing and also to bring that up for the betterment of humanity,” Akpabio said.
The Senate President told the Italian envoy who was recently posted to Nigeria to look into the many bilateral agreements between the two countries that had become moribond with a view to reviving such agreements.
Akpabio also said serious attention should be given to cultural exchanges between the two countries against the backdrop of the fact that over 100,000 Nigerians are legally residing in Italy.
“As at today, we have well over 100,000 legal residents in Italy from Nigeria. That calls for serious attention towards cultural exchanges.
“We will also plead with you to make the Visa processes less cumbersome. We commend the direct flight from Lagos to Milan. This has served a lot of business men. We are hoping that in due course, you may consider revisiting the air agreement, the BASA, to enable us have flight directly from Abuja to Rome and other places in Italy.
Earlier, Ambassador Mengoni expressed the hope that during his stay in Nigeria, “we could develop bilateral relations at all levels with your government and with your Legislature.”
“We are very happy about the agreement which Nigeria signed last week with our major company, ENI, the former Agip, that put aside many years of controversy and opened the way for investment in the Oil and Gas field by the Italian company, together with Shell.”
“It will be a very important moment for relaunching economic, commercial, trading business between Italy and Nigeria because major companies will follow and this will create positive narrative for Nigeria.”
“We commend the government of Nigeria for finding solution to this very old controversy and especially under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that this was made possible,” he concluded.
