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ABUJA. — Nigeria’s foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama on Tuesday said the visit of French president Emmanuel Macron would support improved ties and trade relations between the two countries. Onyeama, who joined other functionaries to receive the visiting French president upon arrival at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja, said Macron’s meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari would help to reinforce the French support to Nigeria in the areas of security, trade and cultural ties.

The two leaders met behind closed doors in the Nigerian Presidential palace on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting was “quite brief,” presidency sources told Xinhua.

The meeting was the first formal one between the two leaders since Macron assumed office last year.

Macron had earlier met with the Nigerian leader on Monday in Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania, during the closing ceremony of the just African Union Summit.

The French are involved in the five Sahel countries in an arrangement known as the G5 Sahel and which is sorted around Mali and dealing with the Al-Qaida in the Sahel and the other terrorist groups in the Sahel region, Onyeama noted.

“We are also going to be looking complementarily at the two security groupings, that is the G5 Sahel and of course the multinational joint task force that we have in fighting Boko Haram, so we can work together sharing intelligence.

“Also very importantly, there is the issue of funding for the fight against terrorism in the African countries and France has been supporting us in this and looking for greater United Nations involvement financially in the process,” the FM said.

He told the official News Agency of Nigeria that, in the area of the economy, Nigeria would be expecting more French investments after Macron’s visit.

According to the top Nigerian diplomat, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be signed for French energy and environmental companies for an environmental project in Nigeria’s southwestern state of Ogun during the visit.

The project, he added, is looking at reforestation and also brings in investments in developing timber and other agricultural products that will, in turn, create about 150,000 jobs locally.

The French leader will proceed to the commercial city of Lagos later on Tuesday where he will meet Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and visit the Afrika Shrine, a music and entertainment center originally set up by the late Nigerian music legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

The French president is also expected at the official opening of the Alliance Francais building in highbrow Ikoyi area of Lagos before departing the city on Wednesday.

The Alliance Francais, a global cultural organization founded in July 1883, is supported by grants from the French government.

Macron lived in Nigeria some years ago when he worked as an intern at the French Embassy in Abuja, according to French envoy Denys Gauer. – Xinhua