By Kingston Magare 18.3.2026
President Bola Tinubu and his wife Oluremi were received to a warm welcome to London by King Charles and his wife Queen Camilla.
Tinubu is on a state visit to the UK; the first by any Nigerian President in 40 years since late Queen Elizabeth II welcomed military ruler General Ibrahim Babangida in 1989.
Tinubu was met by Charles and Camilla in the warm spring sunshine, after being escorted to a red-carpeted dais outside Windsor and Eton Riverside train station by Prince of Wales William and his wife Kate who was wearing a tailored grey coat dress with a white collar and buttons by young British-Nigerian fashion designer Tolu Coker.
The road to the Windsor Castle was line by Nigerian flags and Union Jacks. And later in the Castle Tinubu
More than 1,000 troops were out in force for the diplomatic show of soft power by the royal family. For support Tinubu held on to King Charles’ hand, probally to prevent any form of stumbling like it happened in Istanbul Turkey.
Ceremonial service personnel lined the procession route as the King and the president travelled in the Australian State Coach through the streets of the Berkshire town to the castle’s quadrangle, led by a Sovereign’s Escort from the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment.
They were followed by the Queen and Mrs Tinubu in the Scottish State Coach, and then William and Kate with Nigeria’s attorney-general Lateef Fagbemi and minister of state for foreign affairs Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, in the Irish State Coach.
The visit went ahead despite the suicide bombings in north-eastern Nigeria’s Borno state on Monday, which killed 23 people and injured more than 100, with the president condemning the attacks and insisting “Nigeria will not succumb to fear”.
