President Bola Tinubu is currently holding closed-door talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja.
Blinken, who arrived at the State House at approximately 06:53 p.m. local time, was greeted by Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Tuggar and led into the President’s diplomatic room for a bilateral encounter.
Although the top US official is visiting Tinubu for the first time since the latter assumed office eight months ago, it will be his second visit to the seat of power since November 2021, when he visited with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Nigeria is the third stop in Blinken’s week-long whistle-stop tour, which began in Cabo Verde and will end in Angola, a Central African state.
While visiting a port in Praia, Cape Verde’s city, that had been enlarged with US government aid, Blinken stated that the US was “all in” for Africa.
“We see Africa as an essential, critical, central part of our future,” he went on to say.
According to the US State Department, his visit is part of a larger effort to form a united front with key African democracies as the world faces difficulties.
Before traveling to Abuja to meet with Nigerian President Tinubu, Blinken met with Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan.
The two West African powers, one Anglophone and one Francophone, have broadly supported the US position on arming Ukraine and, more recently, US support for Israel in its battle with Hamas.
In 2022, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, together with Ivory Coast and Kenya in East Africa, joined the United States in condemning Russia’s assault in Ukraine.
This stands in stark contrast to another continental power, South Africa, which the US has accused of enabling weaponry shipments to Russia and has recently filed a genocide lawsuit against Israel with the International Court of Justice.
As a result, Blinken will not visit South Africa, but will instead travel to Angola, which played an important role in mediating the end of violence in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.