The Presidency on Thursday
described President Muhammadu Buhari’s meeting with his United States
counterpart, Donald Trump, as very successful.
In a statement issued by the
President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the
Presidency said Buhari performed better than expectations of some Nigerians.
President Buhari, he said, has
returned to the country satisfied, having got all he wanted from the U.S
government.
In a titled: “Takeaways from the
Auspicious Meeting between Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Donald Trump,” the
Presidency said: “This note is written by one who is mindful of the fact that
there are Nigerians, I mean the opponents of this administration, who have
prayed and prayed very hard that our President in the course of his historic
visit to the White House on Monday, April 30, 2018, would stumble badly or come
back with nothing.
“President Buhari, to the
disappointment of this group, delivered a calm, brilliant performance. He
refused to be provoked and did not get angry at the taunting. He instead turned
his attention to the task at hand and at the end, came home satisfied that he
got everything he wanted from the U.S government. The Rose Garden worked out
very much for him as a routine engagement, certainly not like the make-or-break
meeting as some wanted it to be.
“It is also important that
records be set straight to counter the mischief of opponents, some of whom have
started rendering false narratives of a meeting to which they were neither
invited nor in any way aware of its details.
“The meeting of the two leaders
happened in three phases. First, the one-on-one in which only the two of them
were present. Then they had a working lunch, each leader accompanied by 10 top
officials. President Buhari had with him the Governors of Ogun and Plateau; the
Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Industry, Trade and Investment; the
Chairpersons of Senate and House of Representatives committees on international
relations; the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, (NIA), the
Chief of Defence Staff and Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States.
“The U.S President had
more-or-less the same representation, except that the Secretary of State who
just got cleared for the job by the Senate hadn’t assumed so he was represented
by the Deputy Secretary of State.
“President Trump also brought
with him the Director of the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) which I must emphasize, is significant to Nigeria given the fact that
the U.S. remains the largest contributor to the ongoing effort to reconstruct
the North East and resettle its millions of displaced persons.
“The third engagement involving
the two leaders was the joint press conference by the leaders, aired live by
some major TV networks across the world.
“First of all, it is important to
state that from the very beginning, the two leaders got on very well with one
another. They also shared a common respect for each other. Some key remarks
made by President Trump on our President sum this up. He said President Buhari
‘is a rare leader,’ he said ‘I respect him a lot’ and said our leader had
‘succeeded in cutting down corruption.’ He called President Buhari a ‘valued
partner’ and a ‘strong democrat.’
“The two parties had agreed
before the meeting that discussions will be on three key issues namely
Security/Counter Terrorism, Trade, and Development of Democracy in Nigeria.
“On security, the Nigerian
delegation was pleased from the onset that the Trump administration had agreed
to the major sale of military equipment to Nigeria. Team Nigeria was equally
pleased about the much-increased role of the U.S in assisting the efforts to
defeat terrorism in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region in general.
“The President expressed
appreciation for these and requested additional support to counter insurgency.
“On the specific issue of the
sale of the 12 Super Tucano A-29 warplanes and weapons to Nigeria to
effectively fight terrorism, President Buhari told his American counterpart
that we are pleased with this, but want delivery to be fast-tracked, given the security
situation in the country.”
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