Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu is set to meet with King Charles III on Wednesday in the country’s first state visit in nearly four decades.
Recall that the president and his wife, Oluremi, arrived at London’s Stansted Airport on Tuesday.
According to reports, Tinubu has visited Britain several times in his tenure, and the two countries remain major partners in trade, aid, and defense.
The couple will first meet heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife Catherine, who will travel with them to Windsor.
King Charles will later receive Tinubu for an audience at the historic Windsor Castle, west of London, before hosting a state banquet there in the evening.
Britain and Nigeria have a strong diplomatic relationship, and London and Abuja concluded a strategic partnership in November 2024 to strengthen economic, immigration, and security cooperation.
Likely on the agenda are issues ranging from major Nigerian port renovations backed by Britain as well as trade, which reached 8.1 billion pounds ($11 billion) in the year to September 2025, an 11.4 per cent year-on-year increase, according to the report.
The visit comes after suspected suicide bombings killed at least 23 people in north-eastern Nigeria on Monday evening.
The country has been roiled by a jihadist insurgency since 2009, which US President Donald Trump has claimed amounts to genocide of Christians, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Abuja, which denies the allegations.
Tinubu responded by ordering security chiefs to move to Maiduguri, where the attacks happened, to take charge of the situation.
President Tinubu is expected to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, and members of the Nigerian community abroad.
The last Nigerian state visit to the UK took place in 1989, although Tinubu was received by Charles in September 2024.
Before the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 2022, Charles also visited Nigeria four times as Prince of Wales.
