The Primate of All-Nigeria, the Most Rev. Henry Ndukuba, has urged his government to join the BRICS economic block, saying Nigeria needs to break free from the heavy hand of American and British control over the West African nation.
The call by the Nigerian church leader on 14 September 2023 for his country to ditch its historic economic and political alliance with the West, in favor of China and Russia comes amidst a backlash against political pressures placed by the US, Britain and the EU to impose liberal western secular ideologies upon their country.
In his presidential address to the 14th General Synod of the Church of Nigeria last week, meeting at St Mark’s Cathedral in Nnewichi in the Diocese of Nnewi, Archbishop Ankinola said BRICS “may be a good alternative to the dominance of America, UK and Europe. But more so, it will open new economic frontiers for Nigeria and ensure our non-aligned posture as a country”.
Formed at a meeting in 2006 on the margins of the General Assembly in New York of the foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China – and joined by South Africa in 2010, the group was initially not seen as a non-governmental organization. However, following a meeting in Yekatarinburg in 2009, BRICS has evolved into a geopolitical block with annual summit meetings to coordinate economic and political policies.
At the 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August 2023, South Africa president Cyril Ramaphosa announced Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were joining the group. Forty additional countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS.
The BRICS nations have recently started dropping the dollar in bilateral trade in favor of the Chinese yuan and other local currencies. Following the suspension of Russia from the SWIFT banking system after the invasion of Ukraine, BRICS initiated a non-dollar payment system to circumvent Western sanctions. The goal of BRICS, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told the Johannesburg summit was to replace the dollar as the international reserve currency – a position it has held since the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, with a basket of BRICS currencies – the yuan, ruble, rupee.
Archbishop Ndukuba also urged his government not to accede to pressure from France and hte US to intervene in the coup in neighboring Niger. Like former West African Primate Daniel Yinka Sarfo and Archbishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of Inugu province in the Church of Nigeria, Archbishop Ndukuba said military intervention should not be an option in Niger. “Our government must not allow the United States of America as well as European Union to use Nigeria to do their dirty job in Niger”, he said.
