President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday night returned to Abuja after a successful official visit to the United States where he held bilateral talks with President Donald Trump.
DAILY NIGERIAN reported that Mr Buhari had delayed his return journey to Nigeria after his official visit to the United States of America due to what his spokesman, Garba Shehu, described as a technical stopover.
“They had a technical stopover in London. I am sure if you keep your ears to the ground, you will hear of his arrival soon,” Mr Shehu said.
He further explained that, “the big jet is under repair. It has been taken for major repairs. So the President is using a small plane and there is a limit to the distance the small plane can cover.
“So the technical stopover I talked about is that the journey from US to Abuja is broken into two. Technical stopover is that the plane stops at a point, refuel, do some checks and then proceed on the journey.
“This is very normal. There is nothing unusual about it. In any case, they are already on their way back home.
“It is a routine thing. The plane can do Abuja-Washington, that’s about 12 hours and the maximum the plane can fly is 12 hours, 40 minutes. But you don’t need to push it to the edge.’’
Accordingly, at about 10.35p.m on Thursday, the presidential aircraft carrying the president and some members of his entourage landed at the presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja.
Among those who received the president at the airport were the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Musa Bello, Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari and some heads of security agencies.
President Buhari was accompanied on the US trip by the Governors of Ogun and Plateau; Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Industry, Trade and Investment.
Also on the entourage were the Chairpersons of Senate and House of Representatives committees on international relations; Director-General, National Intelligence Agency and the Chief of Defence Staff.
NAN
