28 August 2000
Abuja — President Bill Clinton left Nigeria early Monday for Arusha, Tanzania, after a three- day visit aimed at showing American support for Nigeria's fledgling democracy, which he described as the most important political transition in Africa since the end of apartheid.
Clinton and his daughter, Chelsea, were seen off at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, accompanied by top government officials.
The plane took off at 0730 GMT after a brief airport ceremony, which included a 21-gun salute to bid Clinton farewell.
The two leaders walked to the limousine conveying Clinton to his aircraft, holding hands in a gesture symbolising the full resumption of old, cordial ties between Abuja and Washington.
During the visit, the US president made history by becoming the first foreign leader to address a joint session of the two-chamber national assembly. A city street was named after him, in addition to bagging three Nigerian names -- Sodangi, Okoro and Omowale -- selected from the three major ethnic groups in the country, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
Nigeria's external debt put at 28 billion dollars by government officials, oil prices, military co-operation, African crises, education and health were among the issues that dominated the talks between Clinton and Obasanjo, who signed a joint declaration detailing the agreements reached.
The American leader promised his country's support for the rescheduling of Nigeria's debt if the country would use the savings from it for human development, a disappointment for Nigerians who had expected a stronger statement on the debt issue, touted as the most important item on the agenda of the visit.
In his only outing outside the heavily-decorated capital city, Clinton drove 25 minutes to Ushafa under an early morning drizzle Sunday to have a feel of a "typical" Nigerian village, where he was made an African traditional chief with the title of 'Dan Masani Ushafa' (the knowledgeable one) by the overjoyed village chief, Yinusa Baba.
The American leader later met with a cross section of Nigerian women at the Women Development Centre, an occasion he used to rally Nigerians to a fight against AIDS, which he described as the next major challenge for the people of the country after their successful struggle against military dictatorship.
He also met with the Nigerian business community, his last engagement during the tightly-scheduled weekend visit, the second to Nigeria by a serving American president after Jimmy Carter's in 1978.
Clinton's trip, the second to Africa in his almost eight-year tenure as American president, will also take him to Egypt.
In Tanzania, he will use his stature as the world's most-powerful leader to help in pushing the Burundi peace process, presided over by equally-respected former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.
The Cairo stop is to enable the American leader, struggling to broker a peace deal between Israelis and the Palestinians, meet with President Hosni Mubarak as part of efforts to jump-start the stalled Middle-East peace process.
An earlier plan to have Clinton's plane make another stop-over in Abuja for refuelling before the long trip to the US was cancelled in favour of the Cairo trip, which was not in the American leader's original itinerary.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2000 Panafrican News Agency. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
