Nigeria and UK look to strengthen trade and economic ties amid growing calls from Africa and Caribbean for reparative justice
“There are chapters in our shared history that I know have left some painful marks,” King Charles said during a state banquet to welcome the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, to the UK, in a year in which the monarch is expected to come under renewed pressure to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.
But while demands grow from African and Caribbean nations for the UK to further reparative justice, Nigeria and the UK are looking to the future of global trade.
Tinubu’s state visit last week is being celebrated as a return to the world stage for Africa’s largest economy. Tinubu is the first Nigerian president to receive a UK state visit in 37 years, and only the second African leader in history to be received at Windsor Castle, after Liberia’s William Tubman in 1962.
This new chapter in the two countries’ relationship, which is rooted in colonial history, promises to help the UK’s ailing steel industry while furthering Nigeria’s ambition to become a regional superpower.
