What Buhari told Trump about Nigeria’s economy, stolen funds, security

President Muhammadu Buhari said his meeting with his US counterpart, President Donald Trump, yielded positive results in areas of the economy, security and anti-corruption.

Buhari stated this during a joint press conference with Trump, after his one-day official working visit to the White House.

He said: “Our two countries maintain a strategic partnership for peace and security, conflict resolution as well as the global fight against terrorism.

“We also share common features as secular federal states, practicing a similar democratic model of governance and committed to the universal values of fundamental human rights and freedoms, free enterprise, social justice and the rule of law.

“President Trump and his team and myself and the Nigerian team discussed issues related to security, trade, governance, human rights and humanitarian crises.”

On economy, Buhari said Nigeria very much welcomed increased US investment in the Nigerian economy, especially in the non-oil sector.

“?Nigeria’s trade volume with the United States stood at 6.07 billion dollars, according to 2016 statistics and comprised 4.176 billion dollars worth of Nigerian exports to the U.S. and 1.894 billion dollars U.S. exports to Nigeria.

“We urged greater effort to increase these figures substantially,” he said.

Buhari thanked the US Government for the cooperation Nigeria had received in its effort to recover stolen funds.

“Our two governments have put the machinery in place for their respective Attorneys-General to collaborate in ensuring the return to Nigeria of over 500 million dollars of looted funds siphoned away in banks around the world.

“In this connection, we congratulated the US government on launching a Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative which was spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering.

“We hope that we could continue to count on U.S. support in this area,” he said.