Washington ‘resets’ Nigerian relations

US President Barack Obama made common cause with his recently installed counterpart Muhammadu Buhari – seeing synergies in both leaders’ campaigns to improve governance, and end extreme energy poverty and other insults to social justice – during the Nigerian leader’s visit on 19-22 July. Buhari was accommodated in Washington for a hastily arranged trip after a planned Nigerian leg for Obama’s African tour failed to materialise. After years of fluctuating relations, both leaders sought to “reset” bilateral relations, an issue promoted when they met in June at the G7 summit in Germany.