President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday congratulated Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, “on his re-emergence after a hard fought snap election.”
According to a statement by Presidential Spokesperson, Garba Shheu, President Buhari said: “On behalf of my family, the government and people of Nigeria, I congratulate a true friend of Nigeria and Africa following his well-deserved re-election as Prime Minister.
“I look forward to working together to further strengthen the existing cordial bilateral relations.”
Trudeau won a third term in Canada’s snap election on Monday night, but his Liberal Party was on course to once again fall short of a coveted majority.
At the party’s headquarters in the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal, a cluster of masked Liberal supporters cheered a victory in Canada’s 44th general election that had seemed in doubt just days before the poll. In corridors outside the main ballroom, relieved Liberal aides quietly hugged one another.
In the end, the final seat tally may not look very different from the composition of the House of Commons when it was dissolved in early August — prompting even more questions about why an election was called during a fourth wave of the pandemic in the first place.
It’s a reversal of fortunes for Trudeau. He launched this campaign with a sizeable lead in the polls — only to see his support crater days later as many voters expressed anger with his decision to call an election during this health crisis. Two middling debate performances by Trudeau and renewed questions about past scandals also put a Liberal victory in question.
But in the end, voters decided the Liberal team should continue to govern a country that, while battered and bruised by a health crisis, has also fared well on key pandemic metrics like death rates and vaccine coverage.