Nigeria scrambled Tuesday to defuse a simmering diplomatic row after it cancelled a visit by the Czech Republic’s prime minister, a move interpreted in the European nation as Nigeria’s protest over Czech’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
Prime Minister Peter Fiala was scheduled to visit Nigeria on November 7 as part of his tour of African countries. He had visited Ethiopia and Kenya when authorities in Nigeria, which was to be his next destination, informed him the country could not host him.
“Nigeria has informed us that it is unable to provide an adequate reception and programme, including the business forum, so we have agreed to cancel the visit,” Czech government spokesperson Václav Smolka said.
Fiala later visited Ghana and met with the country’s leadership where the two nations discussed areas of economic partnerships.
In Czech, officials, media and analysts widely discussed Nigeria’s refusal to host Fiala and his business delegation just one day before the scheduled two-day visit. They tied the move to Prague’s stance in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
Czech Republic was one of 14 countries that voted against a UN General Assembly resolution seeking an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza on Oct. 27. The day after the resolution was adopted, defence minister Jana Cernochova wrote to social media that Czech Republic should withdraw from the UN, saying the resolution “sides with terrorists”.
Israel launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, in which over people were killed.
More than 10,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children and women, have since been killed by Israeli bombardment.
Nigeria says reports “erroneous”
The Nigerian government denied its rejection of the visit, with the potential of investment opportunities, had to do with the Israel-Palestinian crisis.
“The media should note that this speculation in the Czech media is highly erroneous,” Alkasim Abdulkadir, a media aid to Nigeria’s foreign minister Yusuf Tuggar, said in a note share with Pluboard Tuesday.
Mr Abdulkadir said Nigeria could not host the visiting prime minister because the Czech government only notified it of the visit 13 days earlier.
“This is not a factual state of the situation; the dispatch of the Czech government was only received 13 days prior to the date of the visit and is inadequate,” he said.
“Ideally, foreign governments send a minimum of 1-month notice ahead of state visits. This, however, was not the case. Nigeria considers the Czech Republic a friendly nation and welcomes Prime Minister Pete Fiala at a future mutually convenient date in line with established diplomatic practice.”
Reaction in Prague
Czech’s former foreign minister and diplomat Cyril Svoboda said the cancellation of Fiala’s visit to Nigeria was “unprecedented.”
“I don’t remember a prime minister’s trip being cancelled like this in the history of the Czech Republic,” he told local newspaper Prague Monitor.
He blamed the decision in part on the “activist policies of Defence Minister Jana Černochová, who marched in a pro-Israel demonstration draped in the Israeli flag or called for leaving the UN over a resolution she did not find sufficiently pro-Israel.”
“No other foreign minister does that,” Svoboda was quoted as saying.
“Everything should be done to mend relations. The cancellation of the prime minister’s visit to the country’s borders is an absolutely unusual step. Efforts must be made with neighbouring states to resolve this and the visit should be implemented perhaps at another time,” he said.
Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň, senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, told Euractiv Czechia, a Brussels-based pan-European news website, that “This last-minute cancellation is indeed a slap in the face of Prime Minister Fiala.”
“Czechia is quite successful in exports, including arms, on the continent but cannot generate investments that would create jobs. Consequently, it is not a partner that African hegemons like Nigeria cannot do without,” he said.
“I hope this diplomatic scandal is a wake-up call for the government to pay attention to the needs of Africa and invest tangible resources accordingly,” Horký-Hlucháň added.
Marek Ženíšek, head of the country’s House Foreign Affairs Committee, said if Nigeria’s decision had to do with Israel, “then that’s a shame.”
“Surely the prime minister would have adequately explained to the other side that our support for Israel is not anti-Muslim, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian,” he told Prague Monitor.
Some viewed the cancellation as having little significance.
Tomas Prouza, president of the Union of Trade and Tourism, said Czech entrepreneurs would not be affected by the development.
“Nigeria is a complicated country, but it is not Chinese state dirigisme, where the government would tell companies who they can and cannot work with. There they know how to separate the business and political levels,” he told Právo.
Shifting stance?
Nigeria traditionally maintains a non-aligned foreign policy, meaning it does not take sides on international issues, especially in the longstanding feud between the western and the eastern power blocs.
When the Palestinian crisis broke out in early October, the Tinubu administration called for an end to hostilities. As the crisis lingers with rising humanitarian cost, the government has increasingly spoken in Palestinian support.
Last week, foreign minister Tuggar reiterated the Nigerian government’s support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, at a meeting with Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria Abdullah Shawesh. Tuggar condemned the killing of civilians and called on both sides.
On Sunday, amid criticisms, the federal ministry of information issued a statement on its X’s channel, announcing the outcome of the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit, convened of Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The meeting, according to the minister, condemned Israel’s military offensive in Gaza as “war crimes and barbaric killings of Palestinians” and called for an immediate halt to all Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Many Nigerians criticized the statement as having nothing to do with the country. Nigeria’s continued tie with OIC, against the country’s stated secularity, remains a subject of controversy in the country.
Discover more from Pluboard
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.