Trump hosts first African leader
LAGOS: After more than a year in office, US President Donald Trump is hosting an African president at the White House for the first time.
The meeting with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari today comes 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, Africa’s most populous country with almost 200 million people, 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 South Africa’s president.
Nigeria is also one of Africa’s most troubled when it comes to extremism. Extremist group Boko Haram launched a violent insurgency in the north-east nine years ago with the aim of creating an Islamic state, and tens of thousands of people have been killed.
The mass abductions of schoolgirls brought Boko Haram international notoriety, and one faction has declared allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Boko Haram is now active in neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad and poses one of the most severe security threats to West Africa’s vast Sahel region.
With Nigeria nowhere close to fully defeating Boko Haram despite government claims of having “crushed” the extremists, Buhari is expected to seek further US military assistance. Already the Trump administration has made a $600 million (R7.3 billion) 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 violation, including rape and extrajudicial killings.
“With no 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, adding that Buhari’s administration had taken a “much more decisive approach” to Boko Haram.
Buhari, facing elections early next year, is under pressure to deliver on promises to defeat Boko Haram, which helped him win office in 2015 in a rare democratic transfer of power in Nigeria.
In addition to seeking greater security collaboration, Buhari and Trump would “discuss ways to enhance the strategic partnership between the two countries and advance shared priorities, such as promoting economic growth”, said Nigerian presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina in a statement.
A team of Nigerian officials travelled to the US before the meeting.