Madrid — Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, has called on Europe and Africa to reject isolationist instincts and instead embrace good neighbourliness grounded in history, geography, and shared responsibility.
Delivering a keynote address at the 2026 Annual Conference of Spanish Ambassadors, held in the presence of 182 Spanish Ambassadors in Madrid for the conference. Ambassador Tuggar framed Europe and Africa not as distant continents, but as parts of a single geopolitical space separated by little more than perception.
Speaking under the theme “Good Neighbourliness: Building Bridges or Building Walls,” the Nigerian Foreign Minister urged diplomats to focus on what is real rather than abstract, noting that the Mediterranean has historically connected peoples rather than divided them. He stressed that Europe and Africa have long been bound together through trade, labour, and shared economic foundations that predate the modern international system.
Ambassador Tuggar recalled Africa’s central role in the making of the modern world — from the trans-Saharan gold trade of the 14th century, to early Atlantic commerce in sugar and palm oil — arguing that present-day relations cannot be divorced from this shared past. Against this backdrop, he proposed that Africa be recognised alongside Europe and Ibero-America as a constitutive part of Spain’s wider historical identity.
Turning to migration, the Foreign Minister acknowledged its sensitivity but cautioned against policies driven by fear rather than realism. While reaffirming Nigeria’s opposition to irregular migration, he warned that the weaponisation of anti-migrant sentiment and the securitisation of labour mobility had produced destabilising consequences in the Sahel. He praised Spain’s circular migration arrangements with African countries as a pragmatic and humane model rooted in centuries-old patterns of seasonal work familiar across West Africa.
He illustrated how externally driven policies that criminalised migration in transit countries — notably in parts of the Sahel — dismantled local economies, empowered traffickers, and ultimately contributed to political breakdowns and insecurity. Such approaches, he argued, neither reduced migration nor enhanced stability, but instead deepened the very problems they sought to resolve.
Highlighting Nigeria–Spain cooperation, Ambassador Tuggar pointed to joint initiatives on migration management, police training, and the fight against human trafficking and smuggling. He described Spain as setting a constructive example for Europe through engagement rather than coercion, citing its Africa-focused development strategies and dialogue-based partnerships.
On development, the Foreign Minister warned that Africa’s marginal share of global trade remains incompatible with its population size. He argued that exporting raw materials in exchange for manufactured goods entrenches underdevelopment and fuels economic pressure that ultimately spills across borders. Development finance and value-addition, he said, are therefore not acts of charity but investments in shared stability.
Ambassador Tuggar also spoke candidly about the shrinking space for diplomacy in an era of over-militarisation and polarised domestic politics. Diplomats, he said, must now show greater courage in resisting simplistic security narratives and in defending dialogue, compromise, and long-term thinking.
Addressing democratic backsliding and unconstitutional changes of government in parts of West Africa, he outlined Nigeria’s leadership in launching a Regional Partnership for Democracy with the United Nations Development Programme. The initiative, he explained, recognises that democratic systems must reflect local histories, cultures, and stages of development if they are to endure.
In closing, the Nigerian Foreign Minister appealed to Spain’s diplomatic corps to act as interpreters and advocates of good neighbourliness — not only within Europe, but globally. In a world tempted by walls and withdrawal, he argued, the true test of statesmanship lies in the ability to build bridges that history, geography, and common interest already demand.
Alkasim Abdulkadir
Special Assistant on Media to the Ministet of Foreign Affairs
Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar.