President Bola Tinubu announced, yesterday, the establishment of diplomatic relations with Saint Lucia, describing it as a “symbolic bridge that will provide a gateway in fostering closer ties between us.”

Tinubu stated this while addressing a special joint session of the Senate and House of Assembly of Saint Lucia at the William Jefferson Clinton Ballroom, Sandals Grande, Gros Islet, Saint Lucia.

Meanwhile, the President of Saint Lucian Senate, Alvina Reynolds, underscored Nigeria’s and Saint Lucian ancestral links by quoting the result of a British census conducted on the island in 1815, which showed that most of the residents came from Nigeria.

Tinubu proposed creating a Joint Commission or Political Consultation Agreement as a mechanism for structured cooperation between Nigeria and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

He also announced that he would offer full scholarships to students of OECS to promote cultural understanding that would further strengthen the bond between Nigeria and the Eastern Caribbean states.

The Nigerian leader, who delivered his address before leaders from the OECS, emphasised the deep historical and cultural bonds between Nigeria and the OECS and called for greater people-to-people engagement.

The leaders of Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, the Premier of Montserrat, Saint Martin and Saint Vincent were in the audience.

President Tinubu declared Nigeria’s openness to visa waivers for OECS diplomatic and official passport holders and urged reciprocal gestures to facilitate smoother official travel and closer institutional cooperation.

‘’I respectfully urge a reciprocal gesture to enable smoother movement of officials and foster closer institutional cooperation,’’
he said.

According to Renolds, of the 16,282 enslaved people in Saint Lucia that year, 3,488 were born in Africa, explaining: “Of these, 34 per cent were from Nigeria, 11\ per cent from Nigeria-Cameroon and 22 per cent from the Congo. The remaining 12,794 were born in Saint Lucia, with most of their forefathers coming from Senegambia and Nigeria.”

She reeled out the figures in her address as she welcomed Tinubu to the joint session of the Lucian bicameral parliament yesterday.

Tinubu’s presence, she added, is historic for the country’s parliament and the people.

The Senate President also paid tribute to one of Saint Lucia’s most distinguished sons, Sir Darnley Alexander, who journeyed to Nigeria in 1957 and rose through the legal ranks to become the Chief Justice of Nigeria from 1975 to 1979; the only non-Nigerian to hold the office in Nigeria’s post-Independence history.