Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair on Saturday lauded Nigeria for the it handled a potentially tricky situation brought by the protracted absence of the president.
On the first leg of a tour of west Africa, Blair held talks with Nigeria’s acting president Goodluck Jonathan.
“I want to thank him for the wise way he and the institutions of the Nigeria government have handled themselves in the last few days,” Blair told reporters after meeting Jonathan.
“And I want to say it has been a pretty difficult situation and I think they have handled it with skill.”
President Umaru Yar’Adua’s near-three-months absence while he gets treatment for a serious heart condition in Saudi Arabia nearly plunged Nigeria into a leadership vacuum.
But on February 9, parliament thrust Yar’Adua’s deputy Jonathan into office as acting president, in a controversial vote endorsed by cabinet on the following day.
“Even in what seems to be a unique and difficult situation,” the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter “has been able to function and move forward in a proper way,” Blair said
Blair said he and Jonathan discussed issues of “mutual interest to the relationship between Britain and Nigeria… That relationship is a strong one, and I want it to stay strong.”