Buhari departs New York for Abuja after UN General Assembly as Presidency says successful APC presidential primary points to victory in 2019
By Prudence Arobani
New York, Sept. 29, 2018
President Muhammadu Buhari has departed New York for Nigeria on Saturday afternoon after his participation at the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which officially opened on Sept. 18.
Buhari, in the company of his wife, Aisha, was seen off by a large entourage including the Director-General of National Intelligence Agency Ahmed Abubakar, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Amb. Babagana Kingibe, Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama, and Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki.
The Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Buhari arrived in New York on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018 for the gathering of the world leaders.
The theme for this year’s Session is: ‘Making the United Nations relevant to all People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies’.
The highpoint of Buhari’s participation was his address on Tuesday to the General Assembly on the opening day of the General Debate.
The president, in his presentation of Nigeria’s National Statement, sought global cooperation on security, anti-corruption, irregular migration, climate change, and UN reforms, among others.
Buhari and his wife, Aisha, also attended a welcome reception hosted by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his spouse for Heads of State and Government and their spouses.
The president and his delegation attended the high-level ‘Mandela Peace Meeting on Global Peace’ in honour of the centenary birth of late South African President Nelson Mandela.
The Nigerian delegation also participated in a high-level meeting on the ‘Fight against Tuberculosis’ organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as Nigeria currently ranks seventh amongst the high TB-burden countries globally, and second in Africa, where Mrs Buhari also delivered a statement.
The Nigerian delegation attended a high-level meeting on financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit.
Others are the ‘Second Annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum, high-level Meeting on Action for Peace-Keeping’; ‘Commemoration and Promotion of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons’, high-level meeting on the ‘Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa’, and ‘Pathway to Localising a Global Agenda’.
During the course of his stay in New York, Buhari had bilateral meetings with many African and world leaders including Bill Gates with a view to promoting national and African interests.’’
President Buhari also had interactive session with a selected group of Nigerian professionals based in the United States and Canada.
Others in the president’s entourage were Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, that of Health Prof. Isaac Adewole, Industry, Trade and Investment counterpart Okechukwu Enelamah, that of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma and Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jibrin.
Nigeria’s ambassador to the U.S. retired Justice Sylvanus Nsofor, Permanent Representative to the UN, Prof. Tijjani Bande, Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service Mohammad Babandede, and Acting Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Ibrahim Magu and a host of other chief executive officers and aides were also on the presidential entourage.
His return to Nigeria is coming on the heels of nationwide presidential primaries of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to endorse his sole candidacy for the party’s ticket for next year’s general election.
A statement by Garba Shehu, SSAP (Media and Publicity), said that the outcome of the APC’s American-style direct presidential primaries on Friday 28th of September 2018, held across the states with President Muhammadu Buhari as the sole aspirant is a major boost to his success at next year’s election.
He said that “in a more direct way, the huge turnout of millions of registered party members at all voting centres proves that the President has an incomparable ability to reach out to people and mobilise votes.
“It is significant that President Buhari has won a major victory, fair and square through direct nationwide primary, a system that seeks to break the mould. The President has shown that you don’t have to be a party owner or go through a difficult inner party consensus to emerge as candidate.
Beyond this being a victory for the party and the President, it is a message to everyone that development and good governance are more important to our people than divide and rule politics.
“The message in the air from this unique achievement by the APC is that all true democratic parties in the country need to start raising their act by copying the leadership of the President.”
He then thank everyone for their role in bringing about this victory.
