The 18th BRICS Summit, held in New Delhi, India, from Sept. 12 to Sept. 13, focused on the theme, “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
Initiated in 2006 and formalised in 2009, BRICS was founded as an alternative platform for its members to challenge the international multilateral cooperation dominated by the United States, the European Union and the Bretton Woods system.
The original members were Brazil, Russia, India and China.
South Africa joined the group in 2010 to form the acronym used today, which has evolved into BRICS+ following the arrival of new entrants.
Nigeria is not a full member of BRICS but holds Partner Country Status: this status allows the country to participate in summits, partner meetings, and collaborative discussions, but it does not grant full membership privileges such as formal voting rights within the bloc.
Vice President Kashim Shettima represented President Bola Tinubu at the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DD India in New Delhi, Shettima said the country’s current status as a BRICS partner-member was “substantive enough”.
He said Nigeria was focused on gaining practical benefits from its BRICS partnership through cooperation, particularly in areas such as investment and tourism.
However, Shettima left the possibility of deeper involvement open, saying Nigeria could decide to elevate its BRICS membership to a higher level in the future, with any decision guided by the country’s national interest.
“Nigeria is not rushing to become a full BRICS member — but it is leaving the door open.”
He further elaborated on Nigeria’s strategic posture regarding its involvement with the economic bloc.
“Nigeria could decide to elevate its BRICS membership to a higher level in the future, with any decision guided by the country’s national interest,” he said.
Nonetheless, just a few weeks after the BRICS summit in India, Ghana’s Government has approved plans to formally apply for BRICS membership as part of a strategy to accelerate economic development.
This was announced by Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Ablakwa.
Ablakwa confirmed that the cabinet of President John Mahama had authorised the move, with preparations underway to submit the application and seek support from existing BRICS members.
According to the minister, the proposed membership will support Ghana’s economic transformation agenda by creating opportunities for investment, job creation, industrialisation and greater value addition to the country’s natural resources.
The minister stressed that cooperation with BRICS would complement Ghana’s existing international partnerships while expanding its development options.
“BRICS offers us that opportunity to have options in development.”
Ablakwa identified India, Brazil and China as important economic partners.
He noted that trade between Ghana and India had more than doubled, rising from approximately 3 billion dollars in 2024 to around 7 billion dollars.
The government also intends to use closer cooperation with BRICS countries to develop domestic processing industries and increase the economic benefits derived from Ghana’s natural resources.
“We want to add value to the natural resources that we have. And we want to work with partners who have the same shared history and shared commitments,” Ablakwa said.
Some stakeholders are not debating whether Nigeria is missing the benefits of joining BRICS as a full member.
At the 2023 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the heads of state or heads of government of the five member states announced the addition of six more countries to its membership.
Host President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said at the event that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates had been invited to join the bloc.
Full membership took effect on Jan. 1, 2024, BRICS therefore comprises 11 countries.
Several other countries expressed interest in joining the group, a move seen by analysts as a clear indication, among the 67 countries invited as guests to attend its 2023 summit.
Although many regard the bloc as an informal multilateral organisation, experts say its last summit was a statement of intent to truly challenge the status quo.
Navdeep Suri, a Fellow at India’s think tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF), said the BRICS’ Johannesburg summit passed a clear message.
“The fifteenth BRICS summit has gone further than any other in the recent past to modernize and galvanise the grouping.
“It has sent a strong signal that the post-World War II order should accept the multipolar reality and change with the times.
This position was echoed by Jhanvi Tripathi, an Associate Fellow at ORF, who said the group’s composition suggests that it intends to shake up global economic and political cooperation.
“Even the profiles of the new members suggest that the system is headed for something beyond traditionally ‘acceptable’ partners in the eyes of the West.
“The presence of Iran especially and the reactions to it will be interesting to follow,” she said.
Even before the new members, the original five member countries accounted for more than 40 per cent of the global population and a quarter of its economy.
Reuters reported before the summit in South Africa that more than 40 countries had indicated interest in joining the bloc, many of them emerging economies.
Therefore, many public affairs analysts and commentators expressed curiosity as to why Nigeria – Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country – failed to secure admission into the potentially formidable bloc.
In his column Begging for a Seat at the Table, Azu Ishiekwene wondered why Tinubu was more obsessed with becoming a member of the G-20, rather than BRICS.
“Instead of trying to cross seven seas to join the G-20, Nigeria should be more worried that even though it was also a guest at the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg in August, it was not among the six countries that would get membership from January 2024.
“There were two new spots in Africa going to Ethiopia and Egypt,” he said.
Analysts say Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank and IMF are not in a hurry to reform and review their structural approach towards emerging markets’ economic challenges.
They say that as monocultural economies, emerging markets have no way of influencing the prices of primary products they export for foreign exchange.
“Shouldn’t Nigeria join an economic bloc that offers more than currency devaluation, austerity measures, unequal access to foreign exchange and trade imbalances?” one analyst asked.
One way to assess the potential benefits of Nigeria joining BRICS is to look at how South Africa, its smallest member by economy and population, has leveraged its membership so far.
Available data shows that South Africa’s overall trade with its BRICS partners increased by an average growth of 10 per cent between 2017 and 2021.
The trade volume grew significantly in subsequent years, reaching over R830 billion by 2022 and accounting for roughly 21 per cent of South Africa’s global trade through 2024.
BRICS accounted for 21 per cent of the country’s global trade in 2022, with trade with China accounting for about 15 per cent of South Africa’s global trade with a total trade of R556 billion.
India also accounted for 6 per cent of the total trade, increasing from R140bn in 2021 to R225bn in 2022.
Already, the bloc has floated the New Development Bank (NDB), formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank, which is a multilateral development bank to finance public and private projects.
There is also the mulling of a common currency, advocated by President Lula da Silva of Brazil, as a means of reducing member countries’ vulnerability to dollar exchange rate fluctuations.
Some foreign relations experts say perhaps, Nigeria’s reluctance to join BRICS is a cautious attempt not to rush into an association with a group labelled as anti-West.
But Prof. Günther Maihold, a Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said such an assumption does not hold water.
“The old scripts of belonging to a certain order are no longer valid because the reliability of traditional partners has changed.
“The G-7 needs to be aware that the formation of BRICS+ is more than a mere political maneuver to advance China’s vision of international order,” he said.
Nigeria’s Afro-centric foreign policy and its relationship with the West are valuable. But global economy-wise, it can ill afford to put all its eggs in one basket.
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