Nigeria’s Ambassador to Russia, Chief Assam Assam (SAN), says the Nigerian mission in Russia is poised to improve economic and diplomatic ties between both countries.

Assam, said in an interview in Eket, Akwa Ibom that Nigeria still maintained healthy diplomatic relations with Russia, added that the Nigerian mission was currently working hard to improve economic ties to attract foreign investors from Russia to Nigeria.

“We are having a couple of challenges, the first is the one that just happened before I left for Moscow, that was the Supreme Court decision in the ALSCON matter disqualifying Rusal from being the major bid winner for the ALSCON Aluminium plant. And Rusal is one of the biggest aluminium companies in the world, it is owned by the Russians, and then of course, the second, is the issue of kidnapping of six Russians in Port Harcourt and fortunately they have now been released after a lot of negotiations,” he said

He continued: “the third is the current one. Why I am in the country is the issue of arrest of the 13 Russians and a boat flying a Scandinavian flag that has a Russian crew for having possession of arms in its haul during an inspection in Lagos.

On the slow pace of development of the Aluminium city of Ikot Abasi in Akwa Ibom, the diplomat expressed regret over the lingering legal dispute over the privatisation of the plant.

The apex court on July 7 ruled that BFI Group, the Nigerian-American consortium that emerged the preferred bidder for ALSCON in 2004, but was disqualified in controversial circumstances by BPE, was the valid winner of the bid.