Fresh facts emerged on Tuesday that security challenges facing the nation
might have accounted for Nigeria’s exclusion from President Barack Obama’s
three-nation shuttle to Africa.
But the exclusion will not affect bilateral relations between the United
States and Nigeria.
The U.S government said the trip will focus on trade and investment,
democratic institution-building, young people, and unleashing economic growth.
The clarifications were made at a briefing by American Deputy National
Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes.
The joint briefing was addressed jointly with the Senior Director for
African Affairs Grant Harris and Senior Director for Development and Democracy
Gayle Smith, on President Obama’s upcoming visit to Senegal, South Africa and
Tanzania.
The text of the briefing was made available to journalists in Abuja on
Tuesday by the Information Office of the Public Affairs Section of the U.S
Embassy.
Rhodes said: “With respect to Nigeria, we certainly believe that Nigeria is
a fundamentally important country to the future of Africa. We’ve put a lot of
investment in the relationship with Nigeria through their leadership of ECOWAS,
through the significant U.S. business investment in Nigeria and through our
security cooperation.
“Obviously, Nigeria is working through some very challenging security issues
right now. And in that process, they’re going to be a partner of the United
States. We certainly believe we’ll have an opportunity to further engage the
Nigerian government through bilateral meetings going forward. But at this
point, we just were not able to make it to Nigeria on this particular
itinerary.
“I will say that we purposefully designed the itineraries to be able to
reach West Africa, South Africa and East Africa, and in West Africa, to visit
Senegal, a French-speaking, Muslim-majority democracy that is an important
partner of the United States and also provides a platform for the President to
speak to the broader region.
“We are also looking at ways, at the President’s town hall in South Africa
with young African leaders, to draw in through technology young people in
Nigeria and in Kenya, among other places, so that the President is using this
trip to speak to the broader African audience. We recognize we’d like to go to
as many countries as possible.
“Time only permits us to go to these three. But we want to make sure that in
each country we’re speaking to the broader region. And we’re going to make use
of technology and other means to do so.
“And to the middle question, the Africans who have been frustrated — look, I
think it points back to Andrea’s first question. This is a region that,
frankly, has been underrepresented in our travel. And for all these questions
of why the President is going to Africa, I think the question that we’ve been
getting is why hasn’t the President been in Africa more?”
Source: The Nation
