In contempt of previous news making rounds, regarding the alliance with Republic of Benin, and Nigeria; the latter’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said there was no plan to make Republic of Benin the 37th State of Nigeria.

This was was released in a statement titled, ‘Republic of Benin Is Not Aspiring To Be Part Of Nigeria’ which was signed by the Ministry’s spokesman, Ferdinand Nwonye.

It says, “The attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been drawn to misleading reports in the media that the Republic of Benin is aspiring to be the 37th State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

“The Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama in the presence of his counterpart from the Republic of Benin granted a Press Interview after a fruitful meeting between the Ministerial delegation from both countries and stated there ‘…the President of Benin Republic said he would like the relations between the two countries to be so close as if Benin was the 37th State of Nigeria’.

“The Federal Republic of Nigeria has no territorial ambition and has never aspired to make Benin or any country as part of Nigeria.

“The Minister of Foreign Affairs was therefore misquoted and the general public should kindly disregard the wrong information.

“The two West African countries are strong economic partners as entrepreneurs from both countries transact businesses freely at the Seme-Badagry corridor, which has become one of the most popular borders for trans-regional economic exchanges.

” Being good neighbors, the two countries also share certain similarities like culture, religion and tribe. There’s also some cases of inter marriage between the two countries and that is the main aim of the meeting between the Benin Republic president and the foreign affairs minister.”

Ifesinachi Nnabugwu reporting, Obinwannem News