The United States president Donald Trump referred to his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari as “lifeless” shortly after a meeting between the two leaders on April 30, Financial Times said on Monday.
Buhari, the first sub-Saharan Africa president to meet Trump since he was sworn in January 2017 as the 45th American president, was in the US for bilateral talks on Trump’s invitation.
That meeting ended with Trump saying he never wanted to meet someone as lifeless as Buhari again, Financial Times reported citing three persons familiar with the matter.
Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, had said the visit to US was an endorsement of the current administration by the American government.
“No matter how Nigerians take our own country, this is hugely an important country and this recognition is being manifested in this visit,” he had said.
On his part, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, had described the visit as a sign of the growing cooperation between the US and Nigeria.
“He (Buhari) is the president of the most populous country in Africa, the president of the country with the largest economy in Africa. And I think it’s probably the fact that the world is now understanding that Nigeria is very strategic not just to the sub-region but the entire Africa,” Mohammed had said.
At a press briefing held after the bilateral meeting, Trump said he would love to visit Nigeria which he described as one of the most beautiful places on earth.
He also commended Buhari for the war against insurgency and the fight against corruption.
“Nigeria has a reputation for very massive corruption. I also know that the President has been able to cut that down very substantially,” Trump had said.
“We talked about that, he is working on it and they have made a lot of progress and I think they will continue to make a lot of progress.”
But Financial Times quoted three sources familiar as saying Trump told his aides that he never wanted to meet someone as lifeless as Buhari again.
Trump has a history of not so complimentary remarks when it comes to Africa.
Prior to the April meeting between the two leaders, Trump had come under fire for allegedly referring to some African countries as ‘shithole’ at a private White House meeting on January 12. But he denied making the comment and labelled his accusers as fake news peddlers.
While addressing African leaders at the United Nations on September 20, 2017, Trump he referred to Nambia as Nambia twice.
Last week, South Africa accused him of fuelling racial tension in the country after he tweeted that there was a “large-scale killing of farmers” in the country.
His tweet came after a Fox News show about South Africa’s plan to change the constitution to speed up the process of taking lands from current owners without compensation to redress racial imbalances in land ownership.
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