Morocco has recalled its ambassador to Nigeria, in a row over whether President Goodluck Jonathan was trying to use the King of Morocco to win over Muslim voters before the general elections scheduled for March 28 and April 11.
Last week, the Moroccan royal palace said the king had declined a request for a telephone conversation with the Nigeria President.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, denied the snub, Monday, saying the two leaders had spoken extensively.
According to a report by foreign news agency, Reuters, the Nigerian foreign ministry said it was “preposterous to suggest that Mr. President’s telephone call to the Moroccan monarch was intended to confer any electoral advantage.”
In its own reaction, the Moroccan foreign ministry, in a statement said: “Morocco confirms, in the clearest and strongest terms, that there has never been a phone conversation between King Mohammed VI and the President of this country.”
Morocco cited “the hostile, recurrent and unfriendly positions of the Nigerian government with regard to the Moroccan Sahara issue and the sacred Arab-Muslim causes” as reasons for declining Jonathan’s call.
Nigeria is one of the main supporters, along with Algeria and South Africa on the continent, of the independence movement Polisario Front in the disputed Western Sahara.
The territory is a tract of desert the size of Britain, that has lucrative phosphate reserves and possibly oil.
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