Foreign affairs minister Yusuf Tuggar says one of the highlights of the 19th G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was the UN tax resolution championed by Nigeria.

He said Nigeria put forward the tax reform on behalf of the other African countries, and that reform became institutionalised at the UN level.

“So, this is something that Nigeria championed, and others have been echoing it, saying, look, we need to look at the global system of taxation. It’s favouring developed countries and hurting developing countries.

“You’ve got these corporate giants that are from the developed Global North that are participating or making gains in the developing Global South. And they’re not paying taxes,” said Mr Tuggar.

He said he considered it an honour that everybody was echoing the UN global tax reform championed by Nigeria.

The minister said Nigeria also committed to the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.

He stated that the IMF boss commended President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s reforms and its gains and pledged technical support to help carry out studies.

He said Mr Tinubu was also pushing for Nigeria to join this “very powerful group in the world.”

Mr Tuggar said these were the things that affected Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, more than any other region, which was why they also wanted to hear more from African countries.

He said the country with the biggest voice in Africa was Nigeria because of its credentials, its fight against racist regimes, and the support it had offered other Global South countries in the past.

He stated that Mr Tinubu’s government would continue to do more of what it was already doing regarding social programmes, social investment, cash transfers, education, health, and food production.

He said Nigeria would partner Brazil on research to improve agricultural yield. He said during the summit, there were government-to-business meetings, as well as business-to-business meetings.

He added that there was an MOU also signed, a N5 billion off-take agreement for ethanol by the Niger government and a Brazilian company.

He said the Niger government was partnering Indians and Brazilians to grow sugarcane the same way that the Brazilians were doing it instead of importing from them.

(NAN)