The state visit undertaken to the United Kingdom penultimate week by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has continued to elicit fervid reactions from Nigerians, even over a week after the event. Very few actions of the President have perhaps generated this level of verve online and offline in recent history.
Expectedly, it has been a mixed grill of kudos and knocks, depending on which quarters the reaction is coming from. However, what is irrefutable is that the visit, which was at the behest of the British monarch, King Charles III, was historic, symbolic and was tinged in much diplomatic and cultural significance.
Tinubu is the first Nigerian President to be received on a state visit to the UK in the last 37 years. The last state visit was undertaken by a military leader, President Ibrahim Babangida, in 1989. Tinubu is also the first Nigerian democratically elected leader to be invited on a state visit to the UK in the last 27 years since our return to civil rule in 1999 and the first Nigerian president to be received at Windsor Castle.
Others before him went to the UK either for official or private visits.
He was received as a royal guest with pomp and splendour, the regal grandeur that underlies such visits in the British tradition. The significance of a state visit is often distinguished by its ceremonial splendour and radiance, the kind President Tinubu and his wife, the First Lady, Senator Oluremi, were treated to.
A state visit is the UK’s highest level of diplomatic gesture and it uses royal ceremony to signal and strengthen relations with key partners. It is being framed in Abuja as a landmark moment, showcasing what a reviewer describes as the ‘unique bond’ between the two countries and inaugurating ‘a new era of cooperation’.
The Nigerian leader was treated to a significant and brilliant showcase of the British hospitality and affection as a he rode in the King’s horse-driven carriage and inspected a guard of honour at the Windsor Castle quadrangle, among other stately and colorful ceremonial gestures.
King Charles particularly demonstrated the good knack of a perfect host and an impressive mastery of the art of diplomacy, especially at the banquet rounding off the state visit, which the king hosted Tinubu, the First Lady and the Nigerian ministers as well as other government officials at the president’s entourage to.
His Majesty began his speech in Yoruba, greeting his hosts: “E kaa bo, se daa daa ni?”, meaning: “You’re welcome, I hope all is well?” He further enlivened the banquet by interspersing his speech with rich, jocular socio-cultural niceties such as proverbs in the three major Nigerian languages of Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa.
He also demonstrated his knowledge of African cuisines, saying he could not remember which is the best among Nigerian jollof, Ghanaian jollof and Senegalese jollof. He rounded it off with a popular Nigerian slang: “Nigeria no dey carry last!” in a surprisingly flattering pidgin.
Looking at it from the prism of diplomacy and international relations, the state visit was a big boost to Nigeria’s global standing and international reckoning, a clear message to the diplomatic world that the nation’s profile is on the rise, after a spell of low-slung diplomatic status, especially during the misdirection of the Buhari administration.
A renowned international relations expert and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, sees the issue in this light. According to him, the reception accorded Nigeria by King Charles III, supported by Queen Camila, reflects the nation’s enduring importance on the world stage.
The visit, he posits, sent a broader geopolitical message that “This is not just a signal to Nigerians that we are better than we think we are; it is also a signal to the rest of the world that if Great Britain could value Nigeria, the rest of the world should also be paying attention.”
King Charles himself alluded to Nigeria’s rising diplomatic clout in his speech at the banquet when he lauded the contributions of over half a million Nigerians resident in UK who, he said, are doing well in various fields of human endeavours. He then added for effect: “Nigeria hasn’t merely changed, it has arrived.”
The British monarch also described Nigeria as “an economic powerhouse, a cultural force and an influential diplomatic voice.” He said “the friendship between our two countries is a partnership of equals that has brought us both enormous benefit, a deep bond”.
However, two of the issues that tend to cast a slur on the visit are the timing and the large presidential entourage. Most critics of the visit took umbrage at what they described as President Tinubu’s alleged insensitivity in making the trip the same day suicide bombers came to town.
The villaneous elements had walked into Maiduguri, Borno State capital, by stealth and chose Monday, March 16, about the same time that all arrangements for the President’s state visit to UK had been concluded, to detonate their lethal devices in three locations in the sahelian city, killing at least 23 persons(by official account) and critically injuring over 100 others.
The President decided to make the trip, touching off wide outrage. Most of the critics felt he (President) was unfeeling to have jetted out while a section of the country were mourning. At least, he should have shifted the trip to empathize with victims of the tragedy, they argued.
Prof. Akinyemi, however, disagreed with the critics and posited that the President was right not to have postponed the visit because of the Maiduguri tragedy. He described the UK visit as a powerful signal of Nigeria’s global relevance, warning against politicising a diplomatic engagement of such magnitude.
Prof. Akinyemi said: “What happened in Maiduguri was a disaster for Nigeria’s image. It is something we should be weeping about. But you don’t change a state visit at the last second because of something that happened. Disasters happen, but state events go on.”
He added that cancelling the visit at such a short notice would have been diplomatically inappropriate. “You don’t do that to Britain. You don’t do that to the United States. So you keep all those people waiting because of something that happened in your country? No.”
Pesident Tinubu’s bloated entourage on the trip also drew the ire of Nigerians. On his entourage, there were at least 10 ministers, some governors, senators and senior government officials. Altogether, there must have been more than 25 high-ranking Nigerians on the entourage of both President and the First Lady. The City Boy movement, led by Seyi Tinubu, was also reportedly well represented.
Besides, a few days before the visit, Nigerian delegations were already in London to attend the Commonwealth Investment Summit and the celebration of the Nigerian diaspora in the UK by King Charles III at St. James’s Palace. After both events, the Nigerian participants stayed back waiting f
We deplore this bloated entourage size as sheer profligacy because most of these people would get estacode in pound sterling. This is an invidious leech on the purse of government at austere times like this when we need to conserve funds.
Perhaps, we need to remind the President that he had in 2024 capped his delegation on foreign trips at not more than 20, the Vice President’s at 5, and the First Lady’s at 5. That was one of the bold and commendable moves he made then to reduce the cost of governance.
How do we reconcile this large presidential entourage on the UK state visit? It is deplorable. We cannot afford to return to the profligate days of ludicrously large government entourages that frittered away chunks of government’s resources through payment of estacode.
The infrastructure financing, trade and investment deals Nigeria struck with UK generated the greatest hoopla. Nigeria and the UK had signed a 746 million pounds MOU for the modernisation of the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos, with a finance package guaranteed by UK Export Finance and Citibank UK.
[[[[[[ In the arrangement, 236 million pounds worth of contracts will go to British firms, another 70 million pounds will go to British Steel to supply 120, 000 tonnes of steel to Hitech Nigeria and ITB Nigeria for the port upgrades. An Export Finance Deal is a loan, structured to benefit the UK first.
Another MOU was signed to speed up the deportation of Nigerians with visa overstays, failed asylum seekers, and Nigerians in UK prisons. In the area of education, a deal was struck to have Coventry University set up a campus in Alaro City, Lagos State. Twinning Ovaltine is also to set up a 24 million pounds manufacturing facility in Lagos.
Critics, however, argue that those deals disproportionately benefit the UK, leaving Nigeria with significant debt and limited tangible gains. The Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics and Life Vice-President of NACCIMA, Dele Oye, described the visit as a “squandered opportunity for Nigerian business advancement.”
The NACCIMA chief asserted that the visit lacked a clear roadmap for Nigerian Small and Medium Scale Enterprises(SMEs) to access UK markets or benefit from bilateral trade. He described the trip as a largely diplomatic theatre, with speeches that highlight history and culture but offer little concrete strategy for long-term economic impact.
We believe there is substance in some of the criticisms against the deals Nigeria cut with the UK because much of their long-term benefits appear to be heavily skewed in favour of the latter.
Like one of the critics asserted, the deals are largely designed to help protect thousands of UK jobs and strengthen its steel industry, while Nigeria is burdened with repayment obligations, which undermine local economic priorities.
To this end, we ally with the calls on the Federal Government to unfurl the full details of the agreements entered into. These will include the interest rates over the loan deal, the repayment terms and local content provisions.
It is befuddling that none of Nigeria’s steel plants is involved in the 70 million pound deal to supply 120,000 tonnes of steel for the port upgrades, while no Nigerian bank is found worthy to benefit from the ports deal.
It is also impolitic to bring a British university, Coventry University, to Nigeria, while most of the local federal ones are crying for fundamental upgrades and better funding! Already, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has vowed not allow the Coventry University to birth in Nigeria.
It is surprising that a state visit involving at least 10 ministers, some governors and senators failed to explore other crucial and potentially beneficial areas such as leveraging $21 billion in annual diaspora remittances from over 500,000 Nigerians in the UK, like the NACCIMA chief noted, to boost local enterprises and exports.
We believe that the Federal Government could still explore the goodwill garnered from the state visit to seek a possible review of some of the deals in subsequent bi-lateral meetings, to cut a better slice of the cake on the ‘MoU table’ for the country. The deals are too tilted against Nigeria.
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