World Leaders Line Up Offers Of Presidential State Visits For President Buhari At Their Capitals

In what is an unusual diplomatic
largesse for his country and presidency,
leading nations around the world are
offering President Muhammadu Buhari
state visits this year.
This is just as the United Nations is also
looking forward to his participation at
the 70th anniversary of the world body
in New York this September.
In the past recent weeks, the global
community has been generally
celebrating Nigeria, including the leading
international news weekly, Time
Magazine, which published a very
positive review on the country recently,
saying Nigeria is one of the very few
things that is currently positive in a
world described by the publication as
depressing.
As such sentiments spread in the
international community, there are now
at least three major countries known to
have invited Buhari to visit their
executive heads of government in what
promises to be fairly elaborate state
visits sooner or later this year. These
nations are the United Kingdom, the
United States and India.
A senior UN official also confirmed
Monday that the world body is hoping
that President Buhari attends the next
General Assembly summit which marks
70 years of the United Nations.
The official said more than 100 heads of
state are expected alongside Buhari at
the yearly global summit in New York,
where the Nigerian delegation might be
one of the major attractions.
Although a visit to the UN by a nation is
more of the discretion of a country, since
the UN is open to all its member-states
especially during the annual General
Assembly summits, it is believed that the
gathering offers unique opportunities to
celebrate nations, their presidents and
leaders around the world whose public
record or global goodwill are rising, just
like what is happening to Nigeria
currently.
On the other hand, invitations for state
visits from one nation to the other, and
one president to the other is considered
more nuanced and signifies a
celebration of warm ties between nations
and their leaders.
Of the three major nations being
mentioned so far, that is the US, UK, and
India, it is the White House offer of a
presidential visit that is expected to
generate the greatest diplomatic windfall
for Mr. Buhari and Nigeria.
While Nigeria and the U.S. enjoyed good
relationship during the Goodluck
Jonathan administration with the
diplomatic hardwork of Prof Ade
Adefuye, the current Nigeria’s
Ambassador in Washington DC, the
perception that the former Nigerian
president was weak on fighting
corruption and disagreements between
the Nigerian military and their American
counterparts on the fight against Boko
Haram damaged the otherwise warm
diplomatic rapport between both
countries particularly in the last one
year of the Jonathan presidency.
But in both U.S. and Nigerian diplomatic
circles, there is wide agreement that the
emergence of the Buhari-Osinbajo
presidency has changed the tone,
restoring warm diplomatic relationships
again.
This, according to U.S. sources explained
why the U.S. President, Barack Obama,
wanted to send his Vice President, Joe
Biden, to lead the presidential delegation
to witness and grace Nigeria’s May 29
presidential inauguration.
Mr. Biden could not eventually make the
trip because his now passed son, Beau
Biden, was already very ill and dying
and unsettling him emotionally for a
while.
However, at the just-concluded African
Union summit in South Africa, U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State Linda
Thomas-Greenfield, discussed with the
Nigerian delegation to the summit details
of a proposed White House and U.S.
reception for President Buhari very soon.
We reliably learnt that U.S. Secretary,
John Kerry, has actually offered Buhari a
visit to the White House when he
attended the president’s May 29
inauguration in Abuja.
The United Kingdom and India are also
said to have made similar offers on
different occasions
Source: PremiumTimes