By Adodo Osewengie
President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday will leave the territories of Nigeria to attend the third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit that is hosted by the Turkish number one Leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, disclosed this in a statement made available by the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to the President, Femi Adesina.
According to the organizers, the theme of the Summit is ‘‘Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity’’ and the agenda includes reviewing the cooperation between African countries and Turkey since the last summit in 2014.
”The third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit is coming on the heels of President Erdogan’s recent State Visit to Nigeria during which several agreements in the fields of energy, defence industry, mining and hydrocarbons were signed to expand existing bilateral ties.
”The Turkish leader had, during the visit to Nigeria, affirmed his commitment to immediately expand the volume of trade between the two countries to five billion dollars and the Nigerian delegation will seize the opportunity of the gathering in Istanbul to enhance cooperation with other partners for more trade and investment opportunities in the country.
”It is expected that the Summit would provide guidelines and direction for cooperation with African countries for the next five years,” the statement said.
President Buhari will be accompanied on the trip by his wife, Aisha, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Defence, retired Maj.-Gen. Bashir Magashi; FCT, Mohammed Bello; Health, Osagie Ehanire; Agriculture, Mohammed Abubakar and Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo.
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Others are, the National Security Adviser, retired Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Ahmed Rufai.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), it is expected that participants will adopt capacity building training, including an increase of judicial cooperation and relations between judicial institutions, including training cooperation and support, particularly when related to terrorist offences, as well as security cooperation agreements to increase training cooperation on combating drug-related crimes, and vocational and technical education.
The summit is expected to adopt the “Turkey-Africa Partnership Joint Action Plan 2021 to 2026″, which contains concrete actions to be implemented jointly by Turkey, the African Union, and its Member States.
The agenda of the third Summit will include reviewing the cooperation between Turkey and African countries since the Second Summit and drawing a framework for the partnership process in the period ahead.
