Mustafa Bello, chairman of a special purpose investment vehicle to foster regional development in Nigeria, shared his take on Western sanctions and their effect on Russia in an exclusive interview to RT on Monday.
Speaking to RT during the International Forum Primakov Readings in Moscow, Bello, who has previously served as Nigeria's minister of commerce and headed up the country's commission to promote investment, said the effects of sanctions on any country can be “devastating.”
He also pointed out what Russian President Vladimir Putin has said about developing a plan to achieve independence, saying that he believes that “this has placed Russia on the path of that independence.”
“If one door closes, normally another one opens, and that’s what we are seeing, even with the sanctions regime in place.”
Bello offered some advice to the West “to do more to build friends than actually encouraging people to be adversaries.” He explained that world peace can only be achieved if everyone reaches common understandings. Creating divisions and partitions are not the right path, the chairman of Invest-in-Northern-Nigeria Limited added.
“The West can try to convince” but cannot force others to accept its point of view, he argued. The world is “getting out of that phase of use of force to stop you from doing what you want to do,” Bello concluded.
The Primakov Readings, an annual forum that brings together experts in the fields of international relations and economics, concluded on Tuesday.