Buhari receives South Africa’s president amid Omicron COVID variant concerns

President Muhammadu Buhari has received Cyril Ramaphosa, South African president, at the presidential villa in Abuja.

The South African president is reportedly on a three-day visit in the country.

This is Ramaphosa’s first visit to Nigeria as the substantive president of South Africa since he was elected about three years ago.

In 2018, he visited Nigeria as acting president following the controversial exit of Jacob Zuma from office.

Upon arrival at the villa on Wednesday, the South Africa president inspected a guard of honour and received a 21-gun salute.

His visit is coming on the day Nigeria reported three cases of the Omicron COVID variant.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said two of the cases who travelled from South Africa last week are asymptomatic.

“Genomic sequencing of positive cases from routine day two test for all travelers to Nigeria identified two cases of Omicron variant among travelers from South Africa who arrived in Nigeria in the last week,” Ifedayo Adetifa, NCDC director-general, said in a statement.

“Retrospective sequencing of the previously confirmed cases among travellers to Nigeria also identified the Omicron variant among the sample collected in October 2021.

“The two recent cases though asymptomatic have been linked to clinical care and other response activities which include contact tracing have commenced. Arrangements have been made to notify their country of origin to commence in country response.”