PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari yesterday returned to Abuja after a four-day working visit to Ankara and Istanbul in Turkey.
The President’s official aircraft, which took off from Ataturk airport, Istanbul at about 12 p.m. (Turkish time) local time, landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at 4.05p.m.
Buhari, accompanied by his wife, Aisha, was received at the airport by senior government officials, including his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, Inspector-General of Police Idris Ibrahim, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Mohammad Bello and other presidential aides.
While in Ankara, Buhari was hosted by the Turkish President, Recep Tayyeb Erdogan, for “a fairly long one-on-one meeting”, on Thursday before the bilateral meeting that involved their ministers and members of their delegations.
A statement issued in Abuja yesterday by the President’s spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, said the outing was Buhari’s first visit to Turkey since his election in 2015, but the second meeting with Erdogan, who as Prime Minister visited Abuja in March, 2016.
On the issue of arms smuggling, Shehu said Nigeria reached agreement with the Turkish authorities on how to avert future smuggling of illicit arms into Nigeria.
The Tin-Can Island Command of the NCS last month intercepted 2,671 pump action rifles imported from Turkey, making the seizure the fourth at the Lagos port within eight months.