Since the U.S-Africa Leaders\u2019 Summit in Washington last year, the United States has taken a renewed interest in Africa, possibly as a competitive response to China\u2019s dominance.<\/p>\n
This year alone, Africa has played host to top U.S cabinet members including Secretary of State John Kerry and his Commerce colleague Penny Pritzker, and plans are underway to receive President Obama in July.<\/p>\n
In the past five months, topmost U.S diplomat John Kerry has visited Kenya, Somalia and Nigeria, and reports from the White House suggest that he will be leading the U.S delegation to the inauguration of Nigerian President-elect Muhammadu Buhari next week.<\/p>\n
Kerry visited Africa\u2019s largest economy in January ahead of the elections to emphasize that the strength of future US cooperation would be tied to the success of the polls.<\/p>\n
The milestone election was widely celebrated by Nigerians and foreign observers as many believed it crystallized the country\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday @POTUS announced that @JohnKerry\u00a0will lead\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. Presidential Delegation to the inauguration of President-elect Buhari of #Nigeria,\u201d the U.S. State Department tweeted earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
Buhari will be sworn in on\u00a0May 29\u00a0after defeating outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, the first time an incumbent president was defeated in Nigeria by a democratic process.<\/p>\n
The White House said the other members of the US delegation would be announced in the coming days, but there are\u00a0speculations that some senior members of the U.S. Congress, including Christopher Smith, Chairman of the US House of Representatives\u00a0Sub Committee\u00a0on Africa, may\u00a0attend the event.<\/p>\n
Having U.S delegations attend presidential inaugurations of friendly nations is not unusual, however, these are typically led by the U.S Ambassador in that country.<\/p>\n
It is only on rare occasions that senior diplomats and public officials are picked by the U.S president to attend such events, in order to send strong signals underscoring the importance placed on such countries at such times.<\/p>\n
Apart from being Africa\u2019s largest economy, Nigeria is also Africa\u2019s biggest democracy and the world\u2019s most populated black nation. This may explain the strong interest in its peaceful transition.<\/p>\n
Beyond this, Africa\u2019s economic renaissance continues to attract the developed world, mostly from Europe and China, but the U.S will be keen on taking a front-row seat in this renewed attraction.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: Ventures Africa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since the U.S-Africa Leaders\u2019 Summit in Washington last year, the United States has taken a renewed interest in Africa, possibly as a competitive response to China\u2019s dominance. This year alone, Africa has played host to top U.S cabinet members including Secretary of State John Kerry and his Commerce colleague Penny Pritzker, and plans are underway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":118636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-118635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/118636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}