Buhari returns from Kigali, preaches tolerance

President Muhammadu Buhari, in the course of the week, visited Kigali, Rwanda, where he participated in the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and also held bilateral talks with world leaders.

The Nigerian leader, who returned to Abuja on Sunday, while in Kigali, visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda where he made a passionate appeal to Nigerians to be tolerant of one another and embrace peace for the general good of the society.

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Buhari toured the permanent exhibitions at the Memorial and laid a wreath at the mass graves where more than 250,000 victims of the genocide were buried.

He also paid tribute to the memory of the victims and prayed for healing for the survivors.

After the historic visit, the president told journalists that a lesson from his visit was the need for Nigerians to continue to be tolerant of one another.

He added the nation should preserve its own historical antecedents from the Nigeria Civil War (1967-1970).

Also on the same day, the president held bilateral meetings with Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, and Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, on the margins of the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali, Rwanda.

At the meeting with the Jamaican PM, Buhari lauded the relationship between Nigeria and Jamaica.

Also at the bilateral engagement with the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Buhari again reiterated his resolve to respect the maximum term limit in the Nigerian Constitution.

The UK PM, obviously not quite familiar with Nigeria’s maximum two terms limit, had asked if President Buhari would run for office again.

Responding to Johnson’s question, the Nigerian leader said: “Another term for me? No! The first person who tried it didn’t end very well.”

On the leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, not being allowed to see his lawyers privately, the president dispelled such insinuation.

He said the detained separatist was being given every opportunity under the law “to justify all the uncomplimentary things he had been saying against Nigeria in Britain”.

The Nigerian leader had on June 24, congratulated Baroness Patricia Scotland, on her reappointment as Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

Leaders of the Commonwealth meeting in Kigali, Rwanda on Friday reappointed Scotland by consensus for a further two years to complete the balance of her period in office.

He commended the purposeful leadership of the Dominican-born barrister and diplomat in the last six years.

The last official engagement of the President in Kigali was his meeting with Nigerians in the Diaspora on June 26.

At the meeting, Buhari had hailed Nigerian youths excelling at home and abroad, saying the country would welcome inputs and investments from compatriots with international exposure for the economy to thrive. (NAN)