PR TIMES AFRICA PRTimesAfrica (March 2016) | Page 27

same everywhere, you scratch the surface a little
bit and you always find the same thing. I agree
with her. Human beings are the same, and at the
end of the day it is the same things that drive
people everywhere.
Why Africa? Why Nigeria?
I was very keen to come to Africa and to Nigeria
for different reasons. Firstly I had not been to Af-
rica yet and was very eager and felt it was high
time for me to learn more about the continent.
Looking at the different countries in Africa where
Finland has embassies, Nigeria definitely seemed
like the most interesting place for me to start get-
ting to know Africa - the biggest economy, the
biggest population, a very important player in
the region, and very active internationally. I also
knew that Nigeria is very active in the United Na-
tions and that there are lots of Nigerians working
in very important positions in the UN and other
international agencies like for instance now the
African Development Bank. Nigeria is not one of
those places where Finland has traditionally had
bilateral development cooperationprogrammes,
which, after having worked for some years with
development policy, also gave me a refreshing
new angle to my work and to developing Finland’s
bilateral relations. I took it as a nice challenge too
– to have to find ways to develop a