•Declines telephone conversation
The patchy diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Morocco may worsen
after King Mohammed VI of the North African country turned down a
request from President Goodluck Jonathan for a telephone conversation.
It was learnt that the Moroccan monarch deemed such a telephone
conversation a few weeks to the Nigerian presidential election as
inappropriate. Morocco is an Islamic nation and the authorities there
thought that President Jonathan wanted to use the phone call to gain an
undue advantage over his challengers in the race.
Online publication, Premium Times, quoted the
Moroccan Foreign Affairs ministry as saying in a statement on Friday
that: “The request by Nigerian authorities for a phone conversation
between HM King Mohammed VI and Nigerian president was refused by the
Monarch who deemed it inappropriate on grounds of theupcoming elections
in Nigeria.” The Moroccan authorities added that another request by
Nigeria to send an envoy to Rabat was equally rejected because the
monarch viewed the overture as an attempt by President Jonathan to
manipulate his country to secure Muslim votes in the forthcoming
election. The ministry said Mohammed VI refused to speak to the
president partly because of “Nigeria’s positions regarding the sacred
national, Arab and Islamic causes.” Jonathan’s main challenger, General
Muhammadu Buhari, is a Muslim and the Presidency felt that the support
of Morocco might sway a few more votes for Jonathan from Nigerian
Muslims. Nigeria and Moroccohave not been the best of friends over the
years on account of Abuja’s support for independence for Western Sahara
which Rabat continues to lay claim to as its territory. President
Jonathan has been unusually aggressive in his re-election bid,
criss-crossing the country to woo people he considers critical to his
ambition. Yesterday, he visited Ile-Ife to seek the prayers of Yoruba
Obas. A few of them obliged him at the palace of the Ooni of Ife.
Source: The Nation
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