US Secretary of State Tillerson, Buhari meet

United States Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who is in Africa to visit five countries, had a closed doors meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja with President Muhammadu Buhari.

He was at the Villa for the meeting around few minutes after 4pm and is expected to brief journalists after the meeting.

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Tillerson is on a week-long five-country visit to Africa. However, a statement by the spokesman of the top U.S. diplomat, said that Tillerson would be cutting short his trip to Africa to return to Washington about one day short of the earlier schedule date to deal with urgent work there.

A statement by President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed that his principal at the meeting with Tillerson, told him why the Federal Government is being careful on the rescue of Chibok/Dapchi schoolgirls.

“Nigeria prefers to have schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from Chibok and Dapchi back alive, and that is why it has chosen negotiation, rather than military option”, Adesina quoted Buhari as saying.

President Buhari added that Nigeria was working in concert with international organizations and negotiators, to ensure that the girls were released unharmed by their captors.

“We are trying to be careful. It is better to get our daughters back alive,” the President said during the Monday meeting with the US Secretary of State.

He thanked America for assistance rendered in the fight against insurgency, noting that Nigerian forces are good, “but need assistance in the areas of training and equipment.”

President Buhari promised that his administration would continue to do its best to secure the country, adding that he would be in Yobe State, from where Dapchi schoolgirls were abducted, later this week “as part of my condolence and sympathy visits to areas where we have had unfortunate events.”

The President pledged free and fair polls in 2019, recalling that the then American Secretary of State, John Kerry, had visited before the 2015 polls, “and he told the party in government then, and those of us in opposition, to behave ourselves, and we did.”

The visiting Secretary of State commended President Buhari on his strides in the anti-corruption war, to which the Nigerian leader responded that moneys recovered are being invested on development of infrastructure.

Mr Tillerson said Nigeria was a very important country to the U.S, stressing: “You have our support in your challenges. We will also support opportunities to expand the economy, commercial investments, and peaceful polls in 2019.”

 

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