In an attempt to present a unified front with important African Democracies as global problems sweep the globe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with the Nigerian Presidents and Ivory Coast on Tuesday, January 23, 2024.

Blinken will first meet with veteran Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan, who has received acclaim from the US for bolstering democracy. He will next go to Abuja to meet with Bola Tinubu, the President of Nigeria, who was elected last year on an Agenda of Economic Reforms.

Though most of the continent has expressed disquiet about Western efforts to equip Ukraine and, more recently, US assistance for Israel in its conflict with Hamas, the two English- and French-speaking West African States have mainly supported the US.

The most populous Nation in Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Kenya in East Africa supported the United States in a 2022 UN vote against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Their position contrasts with that of South Africa, another powerful nation, which the US has charged with permitting weaponry sales to Russia and which most recently irritated Washington by filing a genocide lawsuit against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

Instead of visiting South Africa, Blinken’s tour will take him to Angola, a country that has successfully transitioned from conflict to democracy and has been instrumental in mediating the end of instability in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Additionally, on Monday, January 22, 2024, he made a stop at Cape Verde, an established US ally. Through his journey, Blinken has tried to show off a more vulnerable side.

His hosts handed him an Orange Ivorian Football shirt with his name on it when he watched Ivory Coast face Equatorial Guinea in the Africa Cup of Nations on Monday.

While visiting a port in Praia, the Capital of Cape Verde, which was extended with US support, Blinken declared that the US was “all in” for Africa. Blinken stated, “We see Africa as an essential, critical, central part of our future.”

But US President Joe Biden betrayed the promise he made to African leaders in late 2022 when he visited Washington that he would travel to the continent in 2023

After being preoccupied with the Middle East turmoil, Blinken is visiting sub-Saharan Africa for the first time in ten months.

Blinken went to Niger on his most recent visit to the area to support Mohamed Bazoum, the elected President.

After four months, the army overthrew Bazoum. The leaders of the revolution forced the former colonial power of France to withdraw its soldiers, but they did permit the arrival of some 1,000 US forces, who utilize the desert of Niger as a base for drone attacks against Islamists.

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But the leaders of the coup have also gotten closer to Russia, whose Wagner mercenaries, known for their brutality, are already at work in Mali, the Central African Republic, and maybe Burkina Faso.

Ivory Coast and Nigeria leaders have expressed their strong opposition to the coup in Niger, with Ouattara even raising the prospect of military involvement.

In addition to providing financial support to provide young people chances, Ouattara has received recognition for his efforts to halt the insurgency’s growth in the northern Ivory Coast.

This strategy aligns with that of the Biden administration, which has advocated for a less military-first approach to the Sahel following ten years of fighting alongside France to root out extremists.

While Biden and Nigerian President Tinubu had a meeting in September during the Group of 20 conference in India, Blinken’s visit is the first significant high-level US engagement with Biden.

Nuhu Ribadu, Tinubu’s National Security Adviser, recently traveled to Washington and then went to a discussion about Ukraine’s “peace formula” on the fringes of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The United States has embraced Tinubu’s request for an investigation following a recent drone strike by the Nigerian Army that unintentionally killed 85 people.