Buhari and Trump will hold a meeting at the White House later this month. This is what they will be discussing.
President Muhammadu Buhari will visit the White House for a meeting with United States President Donald Trump, on April 30, 2018.
White House Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement announcing that Trump will welcome Buhari to the Oval office later in the month.
Sanders says Buhari and Trump will discuss economic reforms, fighting terrorism and ways to grow Nigeria's "role as a democratic leader in the region."
She adds that the United States has a "deep and strong" relationship with Nigeria.
"President Trump looks forward to discussing ways to enhance our strategic partnership and advance our shared priorities: promoting economic growth and reforms, fighting terrorism and other threats to peace and security, and building on Nigeria's role as a democratic leader in the region," the White House said in a statement.
"The relationship of the United States with Nigeria is deep and strong, and Nigeria's economic growth, security, and leadership in Africa will advance our mutual prosperity", Sanders said in her statement.
Luncheon
It won't be the first meeting between the two leaders since Buhari was elected president in 2015.
In September of 2017, Trump and Buhari met at a luncheon in honour of select African heads of States on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Shithole
Trump came under intense criticism back in Nigeria in January of 2018 after it was reported that he referred to Nigeria and other third world countries as “Shithole”.
In December of 2017, the New York Times (NYT) reported that Trump said people live in huts back in Africa.
During a meeting at the Oval Office in June, Trump was quoted as saying immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS”, Afghanistan was described as a ”haven of terrorists" and Nigerians living in the US were scoffed at by the US President for residing in huts back home.
“Forty thousand (migrants) had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never ‘go back to their huts’ in Africa,” the NYT piece read, quoting sources at the meeting.
Buhari is currently in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and a series of other meetings scheduled ahead of the CHOGM.