NAIROBI, January 20. /TASS/. Nigeria’s joining BRICS as a partner country highlights the movement away from principles of a monocentric world, Russia’s Trade Representative in Abuja Maxim Petrov told TASS.
"Nigeria’s joining BRICS as a partner not simply demonstrates an interest of the leading African country in deepening cooperation with countries of the association. It highlights the development of far deeper processes related to moving away from principles of a monocentric world, a world where former colonialists pinned labels of ‘developed’, ‘developing’ and countries of the ‘third world’ after siphoning off rent money and natural resources from allegedly ‘underdeveloped’ countries a century ago," he said.
"Today BRICS is an alternative to neocolonialism principles being promoted by our so-called Western ‘partners’ through the system of oppressive debts from the IMF and the World Bank," Petrov added.
Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry said earlier that BRICS provided the country with a unique possibility to develop trade, investment and social-economic cooperation with participants of the association. On January 18, Nigeria joined BRICS as its partner country.
Brazil took over BRICS presidency from Russia on January 1. At a BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia in October, it was decided to establish a category of BRICS partner countries. The first countries to become partners were Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan. Indonesia was also initially named as a BRICS partner, but on January 6, Brazil announced that the Asian country had been given a status of full member.