Nigeria's Tinubu to meet King Charles III in London
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu is expected to visit the UK in March.
Britain's monarch King Charles III will play host to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu when the African leader makes a state visit to Britain on March 18-19, Buckingham Palace said in a statement on Saturday.
President Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi Tinubu, will be received at Windsor Castle, west of London, by Charles and Queen Camilla, the palace said.
London and Abuja concluded a strategic partnership in November 2024 to strengthen their cooperation on economic, immigration, and security matters.
The West African nation has been grappling with terrorism for several years in the northeast and kidnappings for ransom by heavily armed gangs in the northwest and centre of the country.
On Friday, the Nigerian Ministry of Defence said the two countries intended to strengthen their defence cooperation following a week marked by the massacre of more than 160 people in central Kwara State which President Tinubu attributed to terrorists.
Colonial atrocities
A former British colony and member of the Commonwealth, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a population of 230 million and it is one of the largest economies on the continent.
Although President Tinubu was received by Charles in September 2024, the upcoming trip will be the first formal state visit by a Nigerian president to Britain in 37 years.
Charles visited Nigeria four times when he was Prince of Wales before the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
On Friday, a Nigerian court ordered the British government to pay £420 million to the families of miners killed in 1949 by the colonial rulers, after they protested their working conditions and unpaid wages by occupying the mine where they were employed.
The killings were among some of the atrocities committed by the British during colonialism in Nigeria and many parts of Africa.