Outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria speaks about time in Nigeria, new role

“I will not miss the ‘wahala’ with airline delays. I will miss the climate, the warmth of the people here, the sense of humour, the dancing,” Ms Blatmann said.

France’s outgoing ambassador to Nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatmann, on Thursday, walked confidently into one of the halls of the embassy where journalists were waiting to speak with her about the sudden call to return to France.

She had already applied and received approval to be in Nigeria until 2025 when President Emmanuel Macron asked her to resume as Director for Africa at the foreign ministry.

Ms Blatmann told journalists on Thursday that she only knew Nigeria from the writings of Chimamanda Adichie, Chinua Achebe and what Western media reported, mostly “Boko Haram.”

“It was part of my mission to go further than that and to be able to showcase what Nigeria really is and it is so much more than what is going on in the north-east,” she said.

Ms Blatmann spent 27 months in Nigeria during which she travelled 47 times out of her Abuja station across 15 states of the country.

“I was hoping I would have two more years to do the others and set the record to visit the 36 states,” she said, laughing.

Although frustrated that she will be unable to set a record, she said she is proud of her country’s other achievements in Nigeria, ranging from economic, cultural, security and humanitarian.

Ms Blatmann took no prisoners as she went on for almost an hour talking about France’s interventions in Nigeria including a 70 million euros solar power project in Jigawa State that will commence this year.

France, she said, has doubled its investment in Nigeria’s private sector over the last decade, accounting for 60 per cent of all French foreign direct investments (FDI) in West Africa.

This, the outgoing ambassador said, shows how much France focuses on the Nigerian private sector.

“What makes me very proud is that the French companies in Nigeria (100) are not just here to sell French products, they are actually investing…,” she said, recalling how she happily attended several openings and commissioning of their projects.

She noted that Agence Française de Développement (AFD) has invested over three billion euros in Nigeria over the last 12 years it has operated in the West African country.

Although most of these investments are loans, Ms Blatmann said, they are concessional loans with low-interest rates; 75 per cent of the investments are loans and 25 per cent are grants.

When asked what she will miss about Nigeria, she said she will not miss pepper soup adding jokingly that Nigerians have tried to kill her several times using pepper.

She noted that she will miss the famous Nigerian jollof rice and moi-moi (made with bean purée).

“I will not miss the ‘wahala’ with airline delays. I will miss the climate, the warmth of the people here, the sense of humour, the dancing,” Ms Blatmann said.

In her final suggestions to Nigeria as ambassador, she registered a frustration she had with Nigeria not being able to take advantage of opportunities, especially one which presented itself when the Russia-Ukraine war started and countries in Europe were looking for alternatives for oil.

Ms Blatmann revealed to journalists that Nigeria failed to meet up with the demands due to oil theft amongst other issues and lost the opportunity to countries like Algeria.

If Nigeria can solve its security challenges, the outgoing ambassador believes, investors will begin to flock to the country.