President Bola Tinubu on Sunday received General Dagvin Anderson, Commander of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), alongside Keith Heffern, Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Nigeria, at the State House in Abuja.
Also in attendance were Peter Vrooman, AFRICOM’s Foreign Policy Adviser, and Garric Banfield, the Command’s Senior Enlisted Leader.
The meeting was held in the presence of top Nigerian security officials, including the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu; Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Mohammed Mohammed; Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Tosin Ajayi; Minister of Defence, Christopher Musa; Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Olufemi Oluyede; Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Waidi Shaibu; and the Chief of Defence Intelligence, Emmanuel Uandiandeye.
The engagement comes days after General Anderson revealed that the United States had deployed a “small team” of troops to Nigeria as part of ongoing security cooperation between both countries. He explained that the decision followed discussions with President Tinubu during their meeting in Rome, Italy, late last year.
In a related development, weeks earlier, the US Under-Secretary of State, Allison Hooker, led a delegation from eight American federal agencies to Abuja for a bilateral working group meeting with Nigerian security officials, with the National Security Adviser leading the Nigerian side.
