Tinubu Embarks on Historic Trip to London, Marking Nigeria's First State Visit in 40 Years

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu arrived in London on Tuesday for a state visit, hosted by King Charles III, marking the first such encounter between Africa's most populous nation and its former colonial power in nearly four decades.

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Tinubu has previously visited the United Kingdom several times during his presidency, and the two countries maintain a strong partnership in trade, aid, and defence, with London being home to a significant Nigerian diaspora community.

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The state visit is expected to address various issues, including major renovations at Nigerian ports backed by Britain, as well as trade, which reached £8.1 billion ($11 billion) in the year to September 2025, representing an 11.4 percent year-on-year increase.

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On Wednesday, Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi, will be greeted by Prince William and his wife Catherine, Princess of Wales, while King Charles will later receive Tinubu for an audience at Windsor Castle, followed by a state banquet in the evening.

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The following day, Tinubu is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as members of the Nigerian community abroad, according to the official schedule, which also includes a reception hosted by King Charles for the Nigerian diaspora at St James's Palace last week.

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The state visit provides an opportunity for Britain and Nigeria to discuss security, trade, and governance issues ahead of next year's presidential election, according to Samuel Orovwuje, a Nigerian public affairs analyst and member of the African Development Studies Centre.

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Orovwuje noted that while the two countries have a good trading relationship, the balance of trade has always been in favour of the UK, adding that London and Abuja concluded a strategic partnership in November 2024 to strengthen economic, immigration, and security cooperation.

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Many banks from Africa's fourth-largest economy operate subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, and the two nations signed an economic cooperation agreement in early 2024, under Britain's previous Conservative government, while loans for a major $700 million rehabilitation project at the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports have been guaranteed in part by UK Export Finance.

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Earlier this year, the Nigerian Ministry of Defence announced plans to strengthen defence cooperation with the UK, following a massacre of over 160 people in central Kwara attributed to jihadists, in a country that has been plagued by a jihadist insurgency since 2009.

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The United States, a key British ally, has claimed that the insurgency amounts to a "genocide" of Christians, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Abuja, which denies the allegations, with the west African nation having been roiled by the insurgency for over a decade.

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First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, a Christian pastor, is set to preach at services at Lambeth Palace and meet representatives of the Church of England, despite not being an Anglican, at a time when a rift has emerged between England's official Church and conservative Anglicans over the choice of a woman to serve as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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A conservative group of Anglicans, mainly Africans, met in Abuja this month under the auspices of the Global Anglican Future Conference, electing Laurent Mbanda, the archbishop of Rwanda, as their chairman, in response to Sarah Mullally's ascension as the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.

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Notably absent from the official schedule is the traditional meeting between the visiting head of state and the British opposition, with Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who is of Nigerian descent, having repeatedly criticised Nigeria in public over corruption and violence.

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A Nigerian court has also ordered the British government to pay £420 million to the families of miners killed in 1949 by colonial authorities, while the British Museum has been a notable holdout in the global trend of restituting looted or dubiously acquired artefacts back to their African nations of origin.

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The trip marks the first formal state visit by a Nigerian president to Britain in 37 years, although Tinubu was received by Charles in September 2024, and before the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 2022, Charles visited Nigeria four times as Prince of Wales.