Hans-Rudolf Hodel, Ambassador, Embassy of Switzerland to Nigeria, Chad and Niger, speaks on the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and his country.
Switzerland is one of the most politically and economically stable countries in the world. Also, reports of violent crimes emanating from your country are almost non-existent. What is your secret and what can Nigeria learn from your country?
I don’t think there are secrets to Switzerland’s stability because everybody can see what we do. Think of what happened in Tunisia yesterday-no country is immune to such an event. I mean look at what happened in Norway when one silly person started shooting in the parliament- no one is really safe from such things, but I think there is something peculiar to Switzerland: the participation of the population in political and economic decisions. For instance, no matter your position, you have to pay taxes like everybody else. We are certain about our taxes, and if you want to raise taxes you must have good arguments for it. Another point is the sentiment of the state being not our enemy (like what I have observed in many countries), that the state being us, ourselves even when I spend my money I always think this is tax payer’s money and I am a tax payer myself and we have to make sure that this money is used in the best way possible. For instance, when I go on official trip I fly economy class because I think it is my tax-payers’ money and with that money I can make more intelligent things than just to have the opportunity to fly business class. Or when I make invitations at my house, it is my tax-payers’ money so I invite people who are interested in our bilateral relations, who are interested from Switzerland, from Nigeria and not just colleagues to have free dinner and drinks. This is probably an attitude which is rather uncommon. Another element could be (and this is also the case for Nigeria) that we don’t have a common religion, we don’t have a common language, we don’t have a common political idea; what makes Switzerland a country is the will of the population to form one country together. The German speakers never wanted to be part of Germany, the French speakers never wanted to be part of France, the Italian speakers never wanted to be part of Italy, we choose to be together; that is probably the only thing we have in common; the will to form a country that brings us together.
With oil glut, we will like to know if there is any volume of non-oil trade between Switzerland and Nigeria.
Zero! I mean one percent probably. It is a pity because I travel a lot in Nigeria and I am probably the most travelled ambassador here and I see a lot of land which can be used for agriculture and also a high population of youths which can yield the building of industries, but Nigeria as a country doesn’t export much of non-oil products. It is not as if we don’t want it, but there is little possibility because there is not much that we could buy from Nigeria if it is not oil. I think 90 percent of Nigeria’s export is oil and 60 percent of the state income is also from oil; so I think Nigeria should try to change its export structure and we will adapt and import from what you offer.
Does Nigeria actually import from Switzerland?
Yes but much less than your export. I think our export is around 200 million dollars a year and our import is about 800 million a year from Nigeria, the bilateral ones. Our export is a bit more of varieties- mostly machineries, pharmaceuticals, few chemicals, and consumables-which is not much because Nigerians prefer to buy their Swiss watches in Switzerland and not Nigeria and then they are sure they are real Swiss watches. The volume of oil import from Nigeria which I said earlier is 800 million dollars. The export last year was 240 million dollars and, by the way, we don’t have euro but actually everything is the same, the dollar to the Swiss franc is about 99 cents and euro to the Swiss franc is about 106 so Swiss franc
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