President Bola Tinubu will, this week, depart Abuja for Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for the Saudi-Africa summit and the Arab-Africa summit slated for November 10 and 11, 2023, respectively.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, made this known while briefing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Sunday, November 5, 2023.

Ngelale said: “President Bola Tinubu will be heading to Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to attend two major summits.

“The first of which is the Saudi-Africa Summit, at which several areas of mutual concern will be addressed with respect to the economic ties between the regions with respect to the issues of counterterrorism, the environment, agriculture, and many other areas of mutual concern.”

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He said the aim of Tinubu’s participation is to accelerate the level of trade and investment between Saudi Arabia and Africa, adding: “Obviously, President Tinubu is very keen on ensuring that the Federal Republic of Nigeria within the context of the continent is in a position to maximally leverage on opportunities that will be afforded by the implementation of the African continental Free Trade Agreement, where we will be having a single trade market of over one billion Africans.

“The expectation according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is that by the year 2050, our market here on the continent would have surpassed $29 trillion.”

The presidential aide further stated that Presudent Tinubu will attend the Arab-African summit on November 11 in his capacity as the chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of Government.

He stated that the president’s participation will deepen the partnership between the League of Arab nations and the African Union (AU).

Ngelale added: This would foster integration in terms of infrastructure, facilitation and the establishment of a new high speed train network that would tie Arab nations from the Middle East and Northern Africa, to the rest of the continent.

“I want to assure Nigerians today that President Bola Tinubu is going to do everything he can to reinvigorate the Nigerian economy, through the instrumentation of his leading participation in these two important summits.”

The Star