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According to PREMIUM TIMES, President Muhamadu Buhari is not the first Nigerian President to get a personal invitation from a US President.
President Muhammadu Buhari is on his way to the United States to honour an invitation for a state visit to Washington, extended to him by President Barack Obama on June 25.
Mr. Buhari would be in the U.S. for four days, meeting President Obama, top level officials of the American government, American business leaders, Nigerians in the Diaspora and members of the American War College Class of 1980 in which he was a participant.
But let’s flash back to 1971, 44 years ago, when a Nigerian leader – Yakubu Gowon – diplomatically spurned the kind of invitation Mr. Buhari is honouring today. According to declassified diplomatic documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES, the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon, had written to then Nigeria Head of State, Major General Gowon, requesting him to make a state visit to his country in October of that year.
Mr. Gowon initially accepted the invitation, saying he would request Nigeria’s foreign ministry officials to work out a convenient itinerary for the visit.
But the Nigerian leader, then just 37, later changed his mind, writing to President Nixon to say he was too busy at home, and in Africa, for any visit to America.
Click here to read more
SOURCE: PREMIUM TIMES
President Muhammadu Buhari is on his way to the United States to honour an invitation for a state visit to Washington, extended to him by President Barack Obama on June 25.
Mr. Buhari would be in the U.S. for four days, meeting President Obama, top level officials of the American government, American business leaders, Nigerians in the Diaspora and members of the American War College Class of 1980 in which he was a participant.
But let’s flash back to 1971, 44 years ago, when a Nigerian leader – Yakubu Gowon – diplomatically spurned the kind of invitation Mr. Buhari is honouring today. According to declassified diplomatic documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES, the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon, had written to then Nigeria Head of State, Major General Gowon, requesting him to make a state visit to his country in October of that year.
Mr. Gowon initially accepted the invitation, saying he would request Nigeria’s foreign ministry officials to work out a convenient itinerary for the visit.
But the Nigerian leader, then just 37, later changed his mind, writing to President Nixon to say he was too busy at home, and in Africa, for any visit to America.
Click here to read more
SOURCE: PREMIUM TIMES
