President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to the country, following his official visit to the United States.
The President arrived in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory on Thursday, days after he left the country to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Earlier, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, had announced on Twitter that President Buhari would be back in the country later in the day.
The President’s arrival was, however, delayed due to “a technical stopover” he had in London on his way back to Nigeria.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, had told Channels Television that the President travelled in a smaller aircraft.
He explained that the flight crew travelling with President Buhari decided to break the long journey to refuel and do the routine checks, adding that the procedure was normal.
President Buhari, who had arrived in the U.S. on Sunday, visited the Blair House at Washington D.C. and held a bilateral meeting with President Trump on Monday at the White House.
During the meeting, President Buhari had blamed the killings in some parts of Nigeria by suspected herdsmen on armed men from Libya.
He noted that although the herdsmen crisis has been an age-long challenge in Nigeria, they do not carry guns but only wield sticks and occasionally machetes.
“The Nigerian herders don’t carry anything more than a stick and, occasionally, a machete to cut down foliage and give it to their animals, these ones are carrying AK-47. So, people should not underrate what happened in Libya. 43 years of Gaddafi, people were recruited from the Sahel and trained to shoot and kill,” Buhari had told Trump.
Both leaders, after the meeting, had addressed a press conference where President Trump commended the effort of the Nigerian leader in fighting corruption and terrorism in Africa’s most populous nation.
“Nigeria has a reputation for very massive corruption. I also know that the President (Buhari) has been able to cut that down very substantially. We talked about that, he is working on it and they have made a lot of progress and I think they will continue to make a lot of progress,” Trump had said.
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