British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, has highlighted key areas of collaboration between the UK and Nigeria under the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership (ETIP). In an exclusive interview, he discussed efforts to boost Nigeria’s creative economy, facilitate investment, and strengthen bilateral trade relations. Montgomery reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to deepening economic ties with Nigeria through the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership (ETIP). He outlined key strategies for boosting trade, investment, and the creative economy between both nations.

The UK-Nigeria Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership (ETIP) was announced a year ago with the goal of unlocking economic opportunities for both nations. What factors will enable the initiative to meet its objectives?

Well, I am delighted to speak to you today, and as you have said, the aim of economic growth between our two countries, Nigeria and the UK, is something that is a priority for both governments. And the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership that was signed a year ago, yes, it’s a platform for discussions between our two countries on eight particular sectors, of which today’s event on the creative economy is one of those eight sectors. And these are areas where we see mutual benefit, where the UK has some sort of economic comparative advantage, but so too does Nigeria.

And so, we are looking for mutual growth, we are looking to create jobs in both countries. And indeed, in the case of the creative economy, I think it is really exciting. It’s exciting for a number of reasons.

First, Nigeria’s creative economy is booming. You know, Nollywood on Netflix, Africa, Nigeria fashions, Nigerian Afrobeat, contemporary art, the ArtX Lagos exhibition. Nigeria is booming in the creative sector.

But the UK also has a massive creative ecosystem that is a gateway to the world. And so today’s event is trying to get people from both our economies talking, how can we do more co-production, how can we facilitate market access for Nigerian creative people, and how can we make sure that that partnership grows. And your Honourable Minister for Culture, Arts, Tourism and the Creative Economy, the Honourable Minister Hannatu Musa Masawa, she has a very ambitious plan, and we want to get behind that. And that plan includes potentially creating up to 2 million jobs if we can grow the creative economy in Nigeria.

Culture and creativity are certainly concepts native to Nigerians. What would be the pathway for a young group of filmmakers from, per chance, say a city in Ogun State to find the support and access that the UK-Nigeria ETIP is looking to deliver?

Well, I have been to Ogun State, what a vibrant place, neighbouring Lagos State, and taking up all the opportunities provided by the economic growth that is beginning to grow, is beginning to get faster in Nigeria. And I met His Excellency the Governor of Ogun only a couple of months ago. But in terms of your specific questions about how you create opportunities for young people in the creative sector, my first suggestion is that they need to be talking to the producers and the agents in the Lagos creative economy.

The UK government, you mentioned the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was organising this event. Partly, it is actually mainly being done by the Department for Business and Trade in the UK, for which there is a team in Lagos and Abuja, and some of my colleagues are here today to facilitate this event. And they are very keen to facilitate any business opportunities between our two countries.

So please reach out to us. We are a team in the British High Commission, Department of Business and Trade, and we’ll do what we can to help.  

What specific outcomes are expected from this UK-Nigeria creative economy matchmaking event?

So, I will give you two outcomes that we are hoping to get from today. But I need to give you a little bit of context before I explain the first one. The first outcome is what are the facilitation issues, what are the barriers to creating more investment opportunities in both our countries in the creative economy? Because yesterday, our trade envoy for Nigeria, Florence Eshalomi MP, who is a member of the Parliament for London, she has been recently appointed the UK’s trade envoy to Nigeria, and she hosted the first meeting of a technical working group on the creative economy here in London. With both sides, people from the UK government and the Nigerian government, and also business from the UK creative economy and business from the Nigerian creative economy.

So, the first outcome of today’s event is to hear from businesses of what help do they need from both governments? How can we work on things to do with intellectual property or market access that would help provide a facilitation role for the creative economy in both our countries?

The second outcome that we are really hoping for is that of course there are lots of people already collaborating on producing films and producing music. There are actual businesses, there is business being done in this sector, and we are hopeful that some of the matchmaking that is enabled by the networking today will help people identify new opportunities for investment, new opportunities to produce great creative output. And that business matching, getting businesses in both countries to talk together more effectively, is also helped of course by this massive diaspora link we have between our two countries.

So I have just been talking to British Nigerian businesses that are both based in both countries, and those are the people who are really going to help unlock opportunities for a wider set of investors because they know both Nigeria and the UK, and I think it’s fantastic, and I am really, really enthusiastic about some of the conversations I’m hearing today.

How do you see the UK-Nigeria trade and creative industry relationship evolving in the next two to five years?

So, but let me give you a bit of context on this. At the moment, the relationship between our two countries is going from strength to strength.

So, my Foreign Secretary, David Lammy MP, he came to Nigeria last November, he signed a new strategic partnership that had a number of areas of collaboration between our two governments, including economic growth, including the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership. But we also last week, we were honoured to receive the Honourable Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, he came on an official visit here. I learnt a lot from accompanying him.

The Nigerian High Commission here did a brilliant job in creating a programme that was not just official, meeting my ministers, both the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary and people in the House of Commons, but they also organised these fantastic diaspora events that just shows the talents that we have between our two countries. So, the political relationship is going from strength to strength, helped by this high-level leadership by our mutual foreign ministers. What I had like to see in the next two to five years is an increased number of joint co-productions in music, in film.

I had like to see more investment flowing into the Nigerian creative economy and I had like to see more Nigerian artists using London as a gateway for wider global markets. And the Honourable Minister for Culture, Arts, Tourism and the Creative Economy in Nigeria, she has an ambitious plan that, as I said, we want to get behind. That is to create jobs in Nigeria, but it is also to grow the creative economy where there’s a potential to grow by tens of billions of dollars in the coming decade.

And so, in five years’ time, I had really like to see a big increase in the size of the creative economy coming out of Nigeria.