After more than a year in office, United States President Donald Trump for the first time is hosting an African president at the White House.
The meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday came after an uncomfortable start to the Trump administration’s approach to the world’s second most populous continent. Security and economic issues top the agenda for the bilateral meeting and working lunch. Nigeria is the largest economy on the continent and the leading crude oil exporter.
Buhari was one of the first two African leaders Trump called after he took power, along with former South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma. Nigeria is also one of Africa’s most troubled when it comes to extremism.
With Nigeria nowhere close to fully defeating Boko Haram despite government claims of having “crushed” the extremists, Buhari is expected to seek further U.S. military assistance. In addition to seeking greater security collaboration, Buhari and Trump also will “discuss ways to enhance the strategic partnership between the two countries and to advance shared priorities, such as promoting economic growth,” the Nigerian presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, said in a statement.
Already the Trump administration has made a $600 million deal to supply military planes and security equipment, one that was stalled under the Obama administration because of allegations that Nigeria’s military has been involved in human rights including rape and extrajudicial killings.
“Absent clear evidence of a systematically abusive regime, moral preening is of little utility in dealing with situations like this,” J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, said in a blog post on Thursday, saying Buhari’s administration has taken a “much more decisive approach” to Boko Haram.
Report said that a team of government officials that travelled to the U.S. ahead of Buhari have signed an agreement to provide four companies led by General Electric the opportunity to invest an estimated $2 billion to modernize key railways between Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos, and Kano and between Port Harcourt and Maiduguri.