Rabat, Morocco (TMT)- King Mohammed VI held, on Tuesday in the royal lounge in the blue zone of the COP22 site in Marrakech, tête-à-tête talks with President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari.
The Nigerian president arrived to Marrakesh on Monday, accompanied by the Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama, the Minister of Environment Amina Mohammed, among other Nigerian officials.
Buhari highlighted Nigeria’s commitment to implementing the policy actions aimed at tackling climate change through environmental sustainable efforts, especially that his country is suffering heavily from the repercussions of climate change, with “a series of devastating floods has afflicted us since 2012, affecting more than 2 million people,” as Buhari said in his address yesterday.
Relations between Morocco and Nigeria have been anything but warm for years, largely over Nigeria’s decision to support the independence of the Western Sahara region of Morocco, but during the last months a rapprochement has been witnessed between the Moroccan monarch and Buhari, few months after King Mohammed VI snubbed the former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonhatan when he rejected his request for a telephone conversation, saying it was an inappropriate move to curry the Muslim electorate few weeks before the elections.
Back-then, and despite King Mohammed VI refusing the former Nigerian president’s phone call, his office released a propaganda communiqué saying that both leaders held a phone conversation, something that infuriated the Moroccan authorities and triggered them to deny the taking place of the phone conversation, even summoning the ambassador to Nigeria, and stressing that “the Kingdom of Morocco expresses its astonishment and condemn the Nigerian authorities unethical practices, which go against the spirit of responsibility that must govern relations between states.”
After loosing the elections to Buhari, Johnathan admitted to lying to Nigerian citizens.
The Moroccan Times.
