By Victor Gotevbe
Mr. Mirko Manojlovic is presently the Charge d’ Affaires of Serbian Embassy in Abuja Nigeria. Here the smooth talking career diplomat shares stories about his long term diplomatic career, his love for Africa and why Africans including Nigerians should stay united no matter how hard the current economic recession bites as according to him, it would soon be a thing of the past.

He also sheds some light on efforts put into strengthening bilateral relations between Nigeria and Serbia and how important this is for both countries.

Please tell us  about your diplomatic career?

Mirko Manojlovic

I have served meritoriously in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia in the last 44 years. It is the first in my career and would be the last. As a matter of fact, Nigeria is the last post in my career. In my career, I have reopened two foreign embassies, namely in Lusaka, Zambia  and Congo-Kinshasha. And after these two embassies in Africa, I am now in Nigeria for three and half years handling political affairs here.

You seem to know Africa and its politics and international relations having opened up two major embassies for your country in Africa….

I like Africa very much because I understand African people, African culture and what is necessary for Africa to grow economically.  First of all, without good economy, there will be no good life in Africa. In Africa, you do have a lot of problems which date back from the past. Interestingly, there has been a tremendous development in Africa in the last 20 years.

I hope that this growth will continue. African Union (AU) is excellent. Gambia is a typical case where this unity was recently exemplified in ousting the Dictatorial president.  One of the main problems  is terrorism. But President Buhari’s action against terriosm was outstanding. I am very happy because I was here during the many bad actions of Boko Haram. However, the good action of Nigerian Army and Police was brilliant.

What is your impression about Nigeria in simple terms?

You are a great nation. Nigerians are great people. You are more than 180 million people, two main religions, 50/50 and many tribes. But you are living with all these problems from the 60s. You must save Nigeria’s unity. You are powered by Unity. Now you are in economic recession but this recession will be over.

This recession may be good for you, Nigerians. It is important you develop other sectors of the economy not only to live on oil. You have good soil. Excellent weather, rivers, waters and above all you have human resources. For your human resources, it is necessary to be well educated and skilled. In this field, we can also cooperate between two countries.

In what ways do you think that Nigeria and Serbia can strengthen relations; are there specific cooperation areas we must look at?

First of all is Agriculture. We have excellent experience in Agriculture. I think it is the first. We have famous institutes for seed; famous all over the world and very cheap.  We have factories for agricultural machines also. We have good engineers in Agriculture.  In other countries, we also have good engineers in IT.

I think five Serbian companies are working for Nigeria in IT. And there are some contracts between Nigerian banks working with softwares from Serbia. Every month, about 10 Nigerians travel to Serbia for education in this manner. We must develop further cooperation in this field.

What is the annual volume of trade between Nigeria and Serbia before I ask if there is a balance or not?

Our trade with each other currently is very poor and very low now. My proposal to Serbian Government was and is our delegation on high level must visit Nigeria not only politicians but with one good team of economic experts. And we sit at a round table to discuss about what Nigeria is interested  in Serbia and on the other side, our economic experts will say we can offer 1,2,3,4,5,6. I think it may be the first step and excellent start between two countries. But it is necessary to have a visit of high level. My proposal to my Government was maybe prime minister or president of the Republic of Serbia. I like to say we must reset cooperation between the two countries.

I must inform you that last year our President (Tomislav Nikolic) decorated President Buhari for activities that project Nigeria positively. It is a very high order of Serbia. I am awaiting the protocol of Mr. President to call on me when he returns so that I can present the award to him that has been in my embassy for a while. This is one good way of showing very good sign of cooperation between both countries. It is an exceptional decoration. It can be one new start between both countries.

Many Nigerian business men and women may wish to do business with Serbia; how can they go about this?

On daily basis, I am in contact with many Nigerians from small companies who want to go to Serbia to do business. I usually send the guidelines on how to do business in Serbia. We have very nice and very short instructions about it from our Chamber of Economy. Nonetheless, there is a small problem which has to do with visa regime. I must say we are under big pressure from the EU. As you know in Europe there are a lot of immigrants. More than a million and EU pressed it upon us to give visas to Africans.

We are resolving this problem. I have more than a thousand Nigerians who want to go Serbia.  In fact, annually more than 600 Nigerians visit Serbia. For me it is a small number as a Consular as I want it to be big every year. Our country is open to investments which I think is good for Nigerians also. We have a good soil for renting, agriculture and other sectors to invest in. In this way, there are other problems about living in Serbia, cold period with as low as low temperature (minus 10 degree celsus). There is another challenge for our Serbian small companies who find it difficult doing business in Nigeria.

What’s this challenge?

Verification of Nigerian small companies is a big challenge. There are a lot of falsified documents over the internet. It is so hard to contact these businesses directly.  I am sorry to say that from our findings, there are many fraudsters who misrepresent what they claim to be. Your agency for registration of companies is very slow and in business you must be so fast. Your administration is very lazy and slow. You must change something in your economic organization and how you do business over here.

Exchange of money is another problem in view of the devaluation of the naira and the guarantees from banks is a problem. Well, it is true that these measures of Government are difficult. However, as an Economist I understand that they are normal even though they still make things complicated. I am still optimistic that within a short while the Nigerian economy will stabilize because of deposit of plenty of resources.

One thing I forgot is what happened to your mining industry. I don’t know because you are very rich under the soil. But many years ago your former administration so didn’t invest money from oil in Mines. You are very rich in minerals and you seem not to know how rich you .are in minerals. You must see first see your reserves in many elements and start to use it.

Mirko Manojlovic

We are reliably informed that there was a meeting at your embassy led by the Chairman of the House of Reps committee on Nigeria Serbia relations, would you say this meeting was rewarding?
I am very satisfied with this meeting we had here. We will have another meeting here soon.  Now we expect answer from Speaker Dogora. The Committee is very strong with very good people. They are ready to re-establish our relations. I communicated to my Government and we are ready to continue; with the Parliament and then other kinds of cooperation. I expect results very soon.

Do you have an estimate of how many Nigerians live in Serbia?

Yes, around 100. There are some marriages between Serbs and Nigerians, and I am very happy about it. But 1 percent of Nigerians only want to travel to Serbia as a transit route to Europe. Yesterday, 43 Nigerians were deported from Italy, Belgium and Germany. We have our immigration office that has this problem with Nigerians.

Nigerians who have fake invitation letters and who want to travel to Serbia and after that illegally want to go into the EU Member states because we share borders with Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, and they want to go illegally to EU states since we are not a member yet. This is one reason why small numbers of visas are realized as I pointed out earlier.

Why should Nigerians or Africans at large visit Serbia? What do you have to offer?

Economy is like water. They are coming … It is normal for human beings to do business where he can have profit. Human beings want to go and see how it is in Serbia, in Greece, in Morocco and so on. In my country it is the same thing.  Now a lot of Serbs are now working in Malta. Many didn’t know where Malta was but it is no longer the same.

This is Economic migration. It happens everywhere and so many times.  Many people go to where there is economic growth and they naturally move other there where they can have bigger profits.
Our tourism destination is excellent. We have exceptional spas. For an example, the middle class here have a good number of fat people and may have issues with sugar and Cardio vascular problems. In our country, we have spas with mineral water against sugar and cardio vascular problems. We have superb institutes and hotels in Serbia with mineral water. It is cheaper than in other parts of Europe.

I proposed to my Ministry of Tourism to prepare a guide for our spas for Nigerians and I expect they are going to do it. Other kind of tourism is medical; a lot of Nigerians travel to India , Pakistan, Malaysia for health problems when they can actually have  their solutions in Serbia at a very affordable rate.

In the event that all the ideas you proposed to your Government are eventually implemented what succession plan and or mechanism would your government put in place to allow for continuity since this would be your last post in your career?

It must continue. I started operating new steps for the relations of both countries. I am sure the new Ambassador will continue my idea and he must. Our government agrees with all my proposals. Our new Ambassador was in Kenya as Deputy Head of Mission for two years … he has strong feeling for Africa. You must feel African people, African culture and the way things are done here. Many Europeans are scared of Africans. Many of the companies in Serbia are scared to come to Africa. I usually tell them to please come here first, to be my guests in my embassy and from here we will go everywhere to see. It is necessary to cut this fear of Africa. Our companies want to work with EU, Russia, khazastan, China and so on. I call that fear.  Please come here.

And to those who wish to come to Nigeria from Serbia; what advise do you have?

I know that to live in Africa could be hard. You must have very good nerves, you must know what is African time. Your behaviour must be in accordance with African position. You must understand Africa first. For me if someone tells me I will be here in one hour, I ask if it is Nigerian one hour or otherwise.  For me it is no problem. It is not common to Nigerians. In Italy, it is half an hour every time late. I know because my first work was there. In Zambia, it was everyday being my first time in Africa.

I once had someone from the Ministry of foreign Affairs in Zambia that said he would visit me anytime from now and that was in the morning. “Anytime from now” meant see you in the evening.  After, I understood where I was and what the conditions were. It is also the same for you when you are going to Europe to understand our mentality.

After that all is very easy. You must in your head cut all barriers and then you won’t have problem. I talk with owners of companies in Serbia to please come around.  We are not big economy and we can’t be like Germany, Italy, United States of America…but only small things from your big table may be enough for us. You must have good nerves, understand the time concept. When you make these first steps, after that it is very easy.

Would you like to return to Nigeria at the termination of your mission here?
I would like to rest for one year because for three years I haven’t gone on holidays.

Are you in touch with the Nigerian Embassy in Belgrade?

Yes, I am very much in touch with Mr. Chijioke Mchardy Ani, Charge D Affairs of the Embassy. He is very active about the economic ties. He has also tried to cooperate with our companies. It is necessary for both embassies to have full staff. I understand the Nigerian side because of Budget cut. I got confirmation from Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria who spent five years in Belgrade in the Nigerian embassy. He is an excellent man in MFA.

Many things have become better now that he is Permanent Secretary. Things are moving swiftly. I expect that Nigeria will designate an Ambassador very soon for the Embassy.  Nigeria from Belgrade can cover other Balkan countries because both properties for the embassy and the residence are owned by the Nigerian Government.