President Muhammadu Buhari and his wife, Aisha, will leave Abuja for Istanbul to attend the third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit on Thursday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey will host the event.

Garba Shehu, the president’s media aide, confirmed this development in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

According to the organisers, the summit’s theme is ‘Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity’. 

Its agenda includes reviewing the cooperation between African countries and Turkey since the last summit in 2014.

”The third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit is coming on the heels of President Erdogan’s recent state visit to Nigeria during which several agreements in the fields of energy, defence industry, mining and hydrocarbons were signed to expand existing bilateral ties,” said the statement.

It added that the Turkish leader had affirmed his commitment to immediately expand the volume of trade between the two countries to $5 billion during his last visit to Nigeria.

Mr Buhari’s regime said the Nigerian delegation would seize the opportunity of the gathering in Istanbul to enhance cooperation with other partners for more trade and investment opportunities in the country.

”It is expected that the summit would provide guidelines and direction for cooperation with African countries for the next five years,” the statement noted.

Besides his wife, Mr Buhari will be accompanied on the trip by foreign affairs minister Geoffrey Onyeama, defence minister Bashir Magashi, FCT minister Mohammed Bello, health minister Osagie Ehanire and the minister of agriculture, Mohammed Abubakar.

Others included in the delegation are the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Rufai.

(NAN)