President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has appealed to the government of Saudi Arabia to assist Nigeria in bringing back over ten thousand citizens held in detention in Saudi Arabia.
Lawan made the appeal on Wednesday when the Saudi Arabia Ambassador to Nigeria, Faisal Eebraheem Alghamdi, paid a visit to his office at the National Assembly, Abuja.
The Senate President, while underscoring the role of the Ninth Assembly in ensuring compliance to bilateral and multi-lateral agreements entered into by the Nigerian government, disclosed that ongoing efforts were underway to evacuate citizens held back in Saudi Arabia.
He said, “This legislative arm of government is always conscious of ensuring that our government plays its role in bilateral and multilateral dispositions that our government has decided to go into.
“Saudi Arabia and Nigeria established a very solid relationship for a long time, and the relationship has been growing every year.
“I want to assure you that this arm of government will work with you as the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia.
“We are aware that some of our pilgrims in the past had issues in Saudi Arabia, thousands of them are in detention and, therefore, as a country we have taken conscious decisions to ensure that we continue to educate and enlighten our citizens, especially those going to Saudi Arabia for Ummrah of Hajj, that when they get there, they perform their religious rites and return to Nigeria.
“This is to minimize and possibly avoid people going there and not coming back. I want to assure you that we will continue to support the National Hajj Commission in educating our pilgrims and, of course, the State Welfare Boards across the country.
“Our country is also making a lot of efforts to ensure we evacuate our citizens who are now in Saudi Arabia and who we believe should be back home.
“I want to use this medium to seek the support of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the government to work with us in this respect to get our citizens back.
“Presently, we have over ten thousand Nigerians who are not registered and who are held in detention. It is our desire to ensure that we get these people out of the country and bring them back home.
“I want to assure you that the relationship between these two great countries – Saudi Arabia and Nigeria – can only go higher and better.”
The Senate President also appealed to Saudi Arabia to use its influence as a major player in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase Nigeria’s crude oil production quota.
According to him, doing so would enable Nigeria meet with the country’s infrastructural demands needed to match its growing population.
“As OPEC members, we need the support of Saudi Arabia in so many respects. Even though it is not Saudi Arabia alone that can determine the quota cut for any OPEC country, but Saudi Arabia is the major country in OPEC. Because of your position, you have a lot of influence more than any country.
“Presently, our quota, I think, is about 1.5 million barrels per day. We would request that whenever the opportunity avails itself, we would like to see a higher quota for Nigeria. We have a very huge population – over 200 million – and we have massive challenges in developing our infrastructure.
“At the moment we still earn more than ninety percent of our foreign exchange from the export of crude oil, so we would like to see a situation where we are able to export more of our crude,” he said.
Lawan expressed optimism that the relationship between the Nigeria-Saudi business communities would enhance trade and business relationships to the benefit of both countries.
Speaking earlier, the Saudi Arabia Ambassador to Nigeria, Faisal Eebraheem Alghamdi, said the purpose of the visit was to build on this existing relationship between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, saying, “we need to develop our relationships and this is the goal when I came here.”