05:41PM, Monday 09 February 2026
Windsor Castle (Ref:126567-2)
Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will stay at Windsor Castle during a state visit to the United Kingdom next month, it has been announced.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host President Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for the two-day visit from Wednesday, March 18, to Thursday, March 19.
President Tinubu will be the first international dignitary to be hosted at Windsor Castle on a state visit this year and the first Nigerian leader to make an official inward state visit to the UK in 37 years.
The last Nigerian state visit took place in 1989, following earlier visits in 1973 and 1981.
King Charles, during his time as Prince of Wales, visited Nigeria on four occasions, in 1990, 1999, 2006 and 2018.
Queen Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, accompanied him on the 2018 visit.
More recently, in September 2024, His Majesty received President Tinubu at Buckingham Palace.
Further details of the state visit programme are expected to be announced in due course.
Windsor has become the focal point for major diplomatic events while Buckingham Palace undergoes a £350 million refurbishment.
In 2025 alone, the royal town hosted several high-profile visits, including an unprecedented second state visit by US President Donald Trump in September, a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron in July, and a December visit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Hosting such visits has placed a significant financial burden on the Royal Borough, and the cabinet member for finance, Councillor Lynne Jones, warned that the authority cannot continue to contribute financially without adequate government support at a meeting in November.
Freedom of Information requests revealed that the council spent £160,000 supporting President Macron’s visit, covering crowd barriers, stewarding and road closures.
A separate request showed that the visit of US President Donald Trump cost £37,000 for similar measures. Overall, the council’s bill for staging recent state visits had reached £350,000.
Speaking at the November meeting, Councillor Jones (Local Independents, Old Windsor) said: “The scale of the running expenditure far exceeds what could be reasonably absorbed within our existing budgets.
“We cannot continue to support these [visits] unless appropriate funding is received. Otherwise, we risk a detrimental impact on the services received by our communities.”
Cllr Amy Tisi (Lib Dem, Clewer East) also said that while the borough is proud to host events that are watched internationally, this cannot be expected to come out of taxpayers’ money.
She added: “We simply can’t make the financial burden fall on our residents’ shoulders. It just simply isn’t fair on them.”
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