Nigeria will apply for membership of BRICS in the next two years, the country’s foreign affairs minister Yusuf Tuggar told Russian-owned Sputnik on Wednesday.

Tuggar is on a three-day working visit to Russia, where he has held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

BRICS group, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has recently expanded to include several other emerging powers.

The bloc–its creation initiated by Russia—accounts for about a quarter of the global economy and more than 40% of the world’s population.

“We intend to do it,” Tuggar told Sputnik. “Like I said before, Nigeria runs a deliberative democratic system. So there tends to be a lot of engagement with different interest groups, different internal bodies before such an action is taken.”

According to South Africa, which chair of the 2023 BRICS summit, more than 40 countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Algeria, Bolivia, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon, and Kazakhstan have expressed interest in joining the bloc.

BRICS officials announced last August that the membership of Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates was due to take effect from January 1, 2024.

Argentina’s president Javier Milei has since declined the invitation to join the group.

Tuggar insisted that Nigeria will prioritise its national interests and will not succumb to external pressure from the West regarding cooperation with any country, including Russia.

The Nigerian foreign minister also disclosed that Africa’s biggest economy welcomed Russian alternatives to the SWIFT payment system, including a Russian analogue — the Financial Messaging System of the Bank of Russia (SPFS), — and will consider their use if it satisfies its national interests.

“You have to understand one thing, Nigeria is not the sort of country that succumbs to pressure,” the minister said.

“We have been single-minded since inception. Since we became independent in 1960, we joined the non-aligned movement. We do what we feel is right for us as a country, we are not dictated to by anyone,” the minister pointed out. (The Guardian)

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