INTERVIEW
Good morning Sir’
Good morning, you are very welcome
My name is Bloosom from Arabella star Magazine, thank you for having us.
Thank you for coming and thank you for having me
YOUR EXCELLENCY SIR, CAN YOU GIVE US A BRIEF OF YOU?
Yes, my names are Benson Alfred Bana, am the high commissioner representing the United Republic of Tanzania, in the Federal republic of Nigeria. I have been in Nigeria since the end of January 2020 and basically, I can with confidence say that I am a bona-fide member of the teaching profession having thought from kindergarten to theUniversity level, so i normally count myself as a teacher by profession because i know how a kindergarten kid will behave up to a person pursuing a PHD degree in any field especially in my specialty. I have served my country in different capacity as a consultant of government, as a consultant for World Bank, The International Monetary Fund (IMF), WHO, so i have been almost everywhere for my 42 years of public service, and now i am a Diplomat representing my country in Federal Republic of Nigeria, a great Nation and of a Good People.
- Sir being an Ambassador for years now, what are your experiences?
> Of course, my experience on the Ambassadorial duty is flexible. The world has change and we have come a long way especially in Africa, from the days of decolonization to the days of restoration struggles to the days of economic hardships, to the days of globalization and now we are talking of the days of African Continent Filtrate areas, so much as the world changes. Also the forecast of diplomacy changes, so we have shifted from Polar diplomacy to the heartof diplomacy.
All countries are now focusing on their ownforeign policy to pursue not only National interest but also to enhance people-to-people relationships, business-to-business relationship, company-to-company relationship, should change as the world changes. priorities have changed the outlook, inter nation outlook has changed to also the area of Diplomacy changes, and as diplomats also flexible in other to accommodate theobtaining realities in the world.
- Your Excellency Sir, what are the areas of bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Tanzania?
> The diplomatic relationship between Nigeria and Tanzania, days back to the colonial days, we have a lot of interactions between Nigeria and Tanzania. I can assure you that the chief justice in Tanzania in the early 60s was a Nigerian, and we have always benefited from Nigerians in terms of our judges, there are times when we had three judges in Zanzibar, a part of Tanzania, so our relationship with Nigeria in terms of bilateral relationship is huge. First of all, we all reconverge on the point that we wanted a free Africa, so under the umbrella of the African Union (AU), we struggled together to make sure that all countries which are under the work of colonialismwere reverted and the Tanzania was deceit of revolution struggles, coordinating the ways of AU revolution committee based in Tanzania, so you can’t talk of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, without referring to Tanzania and Nigeria. Nigeria was far away but we are more than those countries anywhere. so we are all concerned that sharing those sentiments, we wanted a free Africa, were Africans live in a free world without being degraded, without being subjugated, exploited and disregarded, we wanted that our human dignity to be preserved and to leave in dignity, so Nigerian-Tanzania had come to a point that was the convergence, so Nigeria is huge and important to Tanzania, much as Tanzania is important and significant to Nigeria, and in terms of bilateral relationship, we have a bilateral agreement. Basically, Nigeria and Tanzania relationship is not just Head of State to Head of State relationship, it is people to people, company to company and business to business relations. currently, we have up to 9 Nigerian companies in Tanzania, for example, we have Dangote group cement factory which is the biggest Dangote cement factory outside Nigeria, among others, we have Nigerian Oil and gas, we have the Eco bank and we are encouraging more.
- Is Tanzania a place to be? to visit for tourism, business, weddings or birthday parties?
>Absolutely, Tanzania is a place you will like to visit a lot, there is no debate about that, in terms of tourism, Tanzania is the second to Brazil in terms of tourist attractions, it is highly rated globally due to its incredible natural resources, it is home to the world largest fresh water lake and second deepest late (Lake Tanganyika ) it is a home to the six tallest trees in the world and the tallest in the whole of Africa, it is also a home to the highest standing mountain in Africa (mountain Kilimanjaro), Tanzania has so many tourist center of attraction including 16 national parks, 31 game reserves, 44 controlled areas, 4 with land size, 33 wild life management areas and 6 nature reserves among others, we are at the moment attracting 1.5 tourist annually. Our target within the next 5 years is to attract 5 million tourists yearly. We have a population of 60 million people, it is not as big as Nigeria, that is why we envy Nigeria and in the case of attending weddings, parties or honey moon, we the embassy here, we are ready to assist with Visa and in terms of identifying area that will best suite their interest. we have about 121 languages spoken but we are united.
- What is the journey so far on the diplomatic relationship between Nigeria and Tanzania?
our relationship with Nigeria is old, old enough that today, this year, would have celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relationship between Nigeria and Tanzania if not for Covid-19.
- Which other relationship are you looking forward to in with Nigeria in the nearest future?
Firstly, i am encouraging private sectors in Tanzania to interact more with the private sectors in Nigeria, so here i am looking at promoting cultural relationship. We are also looking forward to promoting tourism, another area we want to promote is the Swahili language, a language spoken by over 500 million people in our region. We can encourage Nigerians especially high profile institutions to introduce Swahili in their learning packages and curriculumwhich has already stated in the port Harcourtuniversity and Lagos, and we look forward to encourage more, if we can speak English in African to promote the Queens language why not promote our own indigenous African language? So i look forward to promoting Swahili language in west African region especially Nigeria.
- What is the current situation of bilateral agreements?
As i said, we have bilateral Air space agreements, we also have an agreement that will avoid double taxation, if i buy a product here in Nigeria and i take it to Tanzania i shouldn’t be taxed again and vice versa, we are working on that arrangement which has already taken a very good stage.
- Sir are there Nigerians living in Tanzania? is there any Nigerian community in Tanzania?
Yes we have alot of Nigerians in Tanzania and I know a lot of Nigerians schooling in Tanzania, but idon’t know if there is any community with a grass root, and the good of this is that when they go there, they Marry our women and our men.
- Following the just concluded election in Tanzania, what should we expect?
yes we should expect alot and we are very happy that the president was able to secure more than 84 percent of the total votes with the fact that he has more 5years to spend in office, we expect our relationship to grow.
Your excellency, thank you very much for your time.