President Tinubu May Cancel Trip As Saudi Arabia Postpones Summit

President Bola Tinubu

The 5th Arab-African Summit has been reportedly postponed by the Saudi Arabia government due to the ongoing crisis between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Recall that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was set to travel to the Kingdom to attend the summit.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the postponement to a yet-to-be-determined date.

The ministry said the decision had been made after coordination with the secretariat of the League of Arab States and the African Union Commission.

It added the postponement was announced “in order to ensure that political events in the region did not affect the Arab-African partnership.”

The Arab-African summit had been scheduled for Nov. 11.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) announced that an extraordinary summit would be held on Sunday in Riyadh to discuss the Gaza crisis.

The summit will be held at the request of the current chairman, Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh on Nov. 12, said a statement issued by the OIC.

Recall that in a statement on Sunday, Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, said participating in the summit is part of the president’s efforts to push for new inflows of foreign exchange (FX) into the Nigerian economy.

According to him, Tinubu will be leading Africa’s effort to leverage the opportunities that will be afforded due to the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Meanwhile, fighting has raged in the Gaza Strip for about a month since Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack over the border from the territory into Israel on October 7.

More than 1,500 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel since the attack, during which Hamas took more than 240 people hostage.
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In response, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and sent in ground troops, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory saying more than 10,000 people have been killed, also mainly civilians.