The federal government has summoned Stuart Symington, United States ambassador to Nigeria, over Donald Trump’s usage of a demeaning term to describe African nations.
The US president is reported to have questioned why the US would want to have immigrants from “shithole countries” such as Haiti and African nations.
The comment was reportedly made in the Oval Office.
Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, is scheduled to meet with the US ambassador Monday.
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Trump’s remark has drawn widespread criticism from several African countries and also the United Nations. The UN branded it “racist”.
Rupert Coleville, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, said: “If confirmed, these are shocking and shameful comments from the President of the United States. There is no other word you can use but ‘racist’.
“You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes’, whose entire populations who are not white, are therefore not welcome.”
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African Union ambassadors to the UN have demanded a retraction of the statement and an apology from the US leader.
“The AU mission condemns the statement in the strongest terms and demands a retraction of the comment as well as an apology to not only the Africans but to all people of African descent across the globe,” the group of over 50 African nations said in a statement.
Ghana, Botswana and South Africa have all summoned US ambassadors in their countries over the matter.
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