Buhari returns from Commonwealth meeting, preaches tolerance

President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday returned to Abuja after attending the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda.

Buhari also held bilateral talks with world leaders while in Kigali.

He also visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda where he made a passionate appeal to Nigerians to be tolerant of one another and embrace peace for the general good of the society.

Buhari toured the permanent exhibitions at the Memorial and laid a wreath at the mass graves where more than 250,000 victims of the genocide were buried.

He also paid tribute to the memory of the victims and prayed for healing for the survivors.

After the historic visit, the president told journalists that a lesson from his visit was the need for Nigerians to continue to be tolerant of one another.

He added the nation should preserve its own historical antecedents from the Nigeria Civil War (1967-1970).

Buhari also held bilateral meetings with Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, and UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, on the sidelines of the meeting.

At the meeting with the Jamaican PM, Buhari hailed the relationship between Nigeria and Jamaica.

Also at the bilateral engagement with the Johnson, he again reiterated his resolve to respect the maximum term limit in the Nigerian Constitution.

The UK PM, obviously not quite familiar with Nigeria’s maximum two terms limit, had asked if President Buhari would run for office again.

Responding to Johnson’s question, the Nigerian leader said: “Another term for me? No! The first person who tried it didn’t end very well.”

Leaders of the Commonwealth meeting in Kigali, Rwanda on Friday reappointed Scotland by consensus for a further two years to complete the balance of her period in office.