High Commissioner’s Welcome
Chris Cooter
A very warm welcome to the Canadian High Commission in Nigeria’s website.
Over the recent past, the Canada-Nigeria friendship has gone to new heights. Three Canadian Cabinet Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, Minister of International Trade Ed Fast, and Minister for International Cooperation Julian Fantino, visited Nigeria. Each had an ambitious program and left in his wake a whole series of new initiatives and projects to build ties between our two countries.
Anchoring our new relationship with Nigeria is our Bi-National Commission (the BNC), which Minister Baird and his Nigerian counterpart, Minister Ashiru, inaugurated in Abuja in October 2012. Minister Fast, who led a delegation of almost 30 Canadian commercial organization, and his Nigerian counterpart, Minister Aganga, held talks in the BNC framework in January. Minister Fast also opened the 10th annual Education Fair, which included a record 49 Canadian high schools, colleges and universities.
Canada’s approach to Nigeria recognizes the potential of this fast-growing young democracy and African leader. We are establishing new links with the federal government, the states, civil society and the private sector that build on our mutual interest in democratic development and human rights, improved security, improved maternal and child health, growth in trade and investment, and expansion in our people-to-people and institution-to-institution ties. For example, we are very proud of a new cooperation agreement that has been signed between our Parliamentary Centre and the National Assembly’s Nigerian Institute for Legislative Studies.
We are working to ensure that Nigeria also knows about the potential of Canada as a key partner. To that end, we are very pleased by the significant growth in the numbers of students going to Canada last year, by improvements in our visa processing to make travel simpler, and by the Canada-Nigeria Investors Conference in Toronto.
On behalf of the talented team of Canadian and Nigerian professionals it is my honour to lead in our offices in Abuja, Lagos and our Honourary Consul in Port Harcourt, I hope that you will enjoy all the information found on our website.
Chris Cooter
High Commissioner
Primary navigation
- Discover Canada
- Bilateral Relations
- Our Office
- For Canadians
- Proactive Disclosure
