There are speculations that president Muhammadu Buhari and Donald Trump avoided to meet each other at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday where they both gave speeches over the latter’s controversial statement some months ago.

It was reported that United States president Donald Trump referred to Muhammadu Buhari as “lifeless” shortly after a meeting between the two leaders on April 30.

Buhari, the first sub-Saharan Africa president to meet Trump since he was sworn in January 2017 as the 45th American president, was in the US for bilateral talks on Trump’s invitation.

That meeting ended with Trump saying he never wanted to meet someone as lifeless as Buhari again, Financial Times reported citing three persons familiar with the matter.

Yesterday, Amina Mohammed, the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), greeted both presidents separately at the United Nations General Assembly, sparking speculations that they might have avoided each other over the tension generated by the statement.

Donald Trump delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday in which he touted his Administration’s accomplishments, spoke about the importance of American sovereignty and patriotism, and criticized “the ideology of globalism,” among many other things.

President Buhari also delivered a speech as he advocated the reconstitution and expansion of the membership of the Security Council of the United Nations which currently has 15 member states with only five world powers as its permanent members.