President Tinubu Receives US Secretary of State, Blinken at State House

President Tinubu Receives US Secretary of State, Blinken at State House

President Bola Tinubu is currently in closed-door talks with United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

Blinken who arrived at the State House at about 06:53 pm local time was received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, ushered into the President’s diplomatic room for a bilateral meeting.

Although the senior US official is visiting Tinubu for the first time since the latter assumed the Presidency eight months ago, it would be his second visit to the seat of power since November 2021 when he met President Muhammadu Buhari.

Nigeria is Blinken’s third destination in his week-long whistle-stop tour which began in Cabo Verde through Ivory Coast and is scheduled to end in the Central African state of Angola.

Visiting a port in Praia, Cape Verde’s capital, that was expanded through US government assistance, Blinken remarked that the US was “all in” for Africa.

“We see Africa as an essential, critical, central part of our future,” he said.

According to the US State Department, his visit is part of a bid to forge a united front with key African democracies as crises engulf the world.