Tunde Sulaiman 
United States President Donald Trump has been scheduled to meet with leaders from Gabon, GuineaBissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal from July 9 to 11 to discuss “commercial opportunities”. Surprisingly, he did not invite President Bola Tinubu, raising questions about America’s respect for Nigeria, the so-called Giant of Africa.
“President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners,” a White House official said, referring to the reasons why the meeting was arranged.
Africa Intelligence and Semafor reported earlier that the Trump administration would hold a summit for the five countries in Washington from July 9-11. Ironically, in his first term President Trump had met with then Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at the White House on April 30, 2018 becoming the first leader from Africa to do so.
Unfortunately since then the relationship between Washington and Abuja has somewhat soured with former President Joe Biden not according Buhari or Tinubu any such privilege. Instead in December 2022 Biden hosted nearly 50 African leaders in an effort to show “renewed commitment” to a continent routinely neglected by the West.
The summit was seen as an attempt by Washington to check the growing influence of China in Africa. The two years later in the twilight of his tenure, Biden kept his promise and made his only visit to the African continent when he went to Angola and met other leaders from Zambia, Congo and Tanzania.
But more poignantly was the fact that an American President with some African heritage, Barack Obama, whose mother was from Kenya, also failed to stop by in Abuja when he visited the continent twice during his presidency. Among the African countries he visited was Nigeria’s West African rival, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, South Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Despite Nigeria’s perceived status as a continental powerhouse, the only US president to visit the country was Jimmy Carter; in 1978 Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was military Head of State. Incidentally, this visit was also the first state visit by a US President to sub-Saharan Africa.
