Despite the global financial meltdown, Nigeria will spend about N25 billion on maintaining foreign mission offices in ninety countries across the world as provided for in the proposed 2009 Appropriation bill pending approval by the House of Representatives.
The budget shows that the country places its foreign ties with the United States of America (USA) as top priority with a spending of about N1.6 billion on the running of mission offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington DC.
On the African continent which is the centre piece of Nigeria’s foreign policy, a total of N9.3 billion has been earmarked to maintain foreign mission offices in 39 countries.
For other countries with huge bilateral trading relation with the country, the budget proposes to spend N692 million for the London foreign mission office, the mission in Germany will receive N508 million while the one in Paris is allocated N519 million.
Another important trading partner with Nigeria is China where three offices will be maintained. The Beijing office is to receive N299 million, Shanghai is to get N197 million and the Hong Kong consulate office has been allocated N206 million.
The 2009 budget also proposed an expenditure of N26 million on the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) mission in Pretoria and another N126 million on the Dubai Trade missions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Country by country analysis of the budget proposal shows that the country is to maintain two offices in Cameroun, one in Douala and another in Yaoundé at a total cost of N443 million. Same goes for Equatorial Guinea where the office in Malabo gets N137 million and the one in Bata is allocated N174 million.
Other countries where Nigeria is to spend heavily on maintaining foreign mission this year include, Guinea Bissau (N503 million), Egypt (N508 million), Senegal (N491 million), Sierra Leone (N601 million) and Switzerland (N489 million).
Foreign mission in neighboring Niger Republic will receive an allocation of N175 million for the embassy and another N93 million for the Nigeria/Niger Joint Commission in Niamey.
The mission office in Moscow will get (N403 million), Canada is to get N420 million, the foreign mission in Tokyo is allocated N612 million.
For the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Nigeria is to maintain offices that will take care of both Muslims and Christian’s holy pilgrimage to those countries. In Saudi Arabia two offices in Jeddah and Riyadh will be maintained at a cost of N412 million while in Israel N228 million will be spent for both the embassy and Christian pilgrimage mission.
The total budget for the Foreign Affairs Ministry is N46.7 billion with a total allocation of N19.6 billion to the main ministry.