Nigerian Government has spoken on
the suggested visit to the country by the US President, Donald Trump.
Speaking through the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, the government said the visit may not happen
any moment soon as it will take up to a year to prepare.
Onyeama, who said this in
Washington, DC, adding that Trump also has a very busy schedule while Nigeria’s
general election was also coming up.
Trump had told Nigeria’s
President Muhammadu Buhari that he would like to visit Nigeria, a country he
described as “amazing.”
“I would very much like to visit
Nigeria. It is an amazing country and in certain ways, I hear from the
standpoint of the beauty of a country.
“There is no country more
beautiful,” Trump said on Monday at a joint briefing with Buhari.
““Regarding the invitation, well
if the programmers of the two presidents are very very intensive, it usually
takes anything up to a year to prepare for invitation at that kind of level
before they actually take place.
“Of course in Nigeria you know we
have elections coming up and a very very busy schedule as that of President
Trump. May be sometime next year we could envisage something like that,” he
said.
Onyeama explained that Buhari’s
outing at the U.S. was a win-win for Nigeria and the U.S. saying each president
has 10 members of his delegation during the bilateral meeting between Buhari
and Trump.
He added that Buhari met with six
Chief Executive Officers of U.S. agriculture companies and with a group of 10
U.S. business leaders from different sectors, including petroleum.
“Areas covered were Security,
trade, governance issues. On trade, the objective was to increase the level of
trade between Nigeria and the United States.
“The two presidents agreed that
concerted efforts will be made. The issues of market access in the context were
discussed.
“On security, the U.S. has been
helping Nigeria, supplying military equipment in the fight against terrorism
and there is agreement to continue the cooperation between the two countries in
this context.
“In the area of governance, the
return to Nigeria in the area of large sums of money that has been siphoned out
of Nigeria and lodged in banks in various jurisdictions around the world and
the cooperative with the United States helping to repatriate these funds to
Nigeria were also discussed.
“A commitment was made to me his
cooperation in this regard.
“So there were good wins, on the
security side, continued cooperation and of course reparations of these funds
and increase in trade,” he said.
On Trump’s request for Nigeria to
support the joint U.S. bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup with Canada and Mexico,
Onyeama suggested there was no commitment from Nigeria so far.
“We will wait and see,” the
Nigeria’s foreign minister said.
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