President Buhari plans to attend Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit

Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari is expected to travel to Turkey for the 3rd Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit, hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Republic of Turkey.

This was disclosed by the office of a President in a statement on Thursday by his Malam Garba Shehu, the President’s media aide, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

The event would be held in Istanbul and themed, ‘‘Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity,’’ will be reviewing the cooperation between African countries and Turkey since the last summit in 2014.

A press statement issued by the Presidency concerning the matter reads, “The third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit is coming on the heels of President Erdogan’s recent State Visit to Nigeria during which several agreements in the fields of energy, defence industry, mining and hydrocarbons were signed to expand existing bilateral ties.

“The Turkish leader had, during the visit to Nigeria, affirmed his commitment to immediately expand the volume of trade between the two countries to five billion dollars and the Nigerian delegation will seize the opportunity of the gathering in Istanbul to enhance cooperation with other partners for more trade and investment opportunities in the country.

It is expected that the Summit would provide guidelines and direction for cooperation with African countries for the next five years.”

The Presidency announced that the President would be accompanied on the trip by his wife, Aisha, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Defence, rtd Maj.-Gen. Bashir Magashi; FCT, Mohammed Bello; Health, Osagie Ehanire; Agriculture, Mohammed Abubakar and Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo; the National Security Adviser, rtd Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Ahmed Rufai.