Your Excellency, Mr President, and Distinguished First Lady,
Ekabo. Se Daaa Daa Ni. (Greetings! I hope you are well.)
My wife and I are delighted to welcome you to Windsor Castle here on this occasion. We are most grateful to you for travelling during this holy month which, I acknowledge, is no small sacrifice, and so it is my particular pleasure to wish you, Mr President, peace, blessings, and an abundance of joy.
Ramadan Mubarak!
During my most recent visit to Nigeria in 2018, when I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time with your highly respected traditional leaders, the Sultan of Sokoto, the Ooni of Ife, Onitsha, Warri, and The Emir of Kano, it was self-evident that while the warmth of the Nigerian welcome remains constant, the country itself is transforming at a remarkable pace. Nigeria hasn’t merely changed. It has arrived. Yours is now a nation of over two hundred and thirty million people, half of whom are under eighteen, with the energy, ingenuity, ambition and resolve to address the great challenges of our age.
We in the United Kingdom are blessed that so many people of Nigerian heritage, having chosen Britain as their home, are now at the heart of British life through excelling at the highest levels of business, technology, academia, law, science, sport, literature and the arts, and public service.
I have met so many of these quiet heroes in our schools, businesses, National Health Service and universities, including countless young people who have flourished through the work of my King’s Trust over the last fifty years. Only last week, I was delighted to host a rather lively group of them for a ‘Jollof and Tea’ Party, at St. James’s Palace. I was firmly assured that the Jollof was only the best: Nigerian, of course… or perhaps Ghanaian or Senegalese. Diplomatically I cannot remember!
But who could have imagined that, when I first visited Nigeria thirty-six years ago today, so many of those I might have met would have gone on to have such an impact in the United Kingdom. From Afrobeats filling our concert halls and Nollywood captivating our screens, to stars competing in our Premier League and adjudicating our highest courts, so much of Britain’s culture is, in truth, profoundly enriched by Nigeria. Whether they are Nigerians who have chosen Britain as their adopted place to invest, trade or study, or Britons who cherish their personal connection to Nigeria, they all represent a living bridge of over half a million people who connect our nations, Mr President, and help make our cultures richer, our shared security stronger and our economies more prosperous.
We are proud that so many great examples of this living bridge join us this evening.
As the connections between our nations deepen every day, so too do the economic ties. Your visit has provided the opportunity to celebrate the fact that Nigeria is investing in Britain’s future as much as Britain is investing in Nigeria’s – leading Nigerian banks have chosen the City of London as a global base, examples of the best Nigerian companies have listed on London’s Stock Exchange, and U.K. Export Finance is supporting investment in Nigeria’s ports. In education, British schools and universities are opening their doors in Nigeria, and British and Nigerian technology companies are forming ever closer partnerships. I was pleased to see that visitors from Nigeria spent £178 million in Britain in 2024, and 251,000 people from Britain travelled to Nigeria and spent just as much, in return. In January of this year, Nigeria became the United Kingdom’s biggest export market in Africa and whilst I hear that in Nigeria the phrase ‘Made in U.K.’ has always symbolised the highest quality, it evidently now has a distinctively Nigerian flavour…
The friends
