The Federal Government of Nigeria has congratulated the Lebanon President elect, Joseph Aoun.
Aoun secured 99 votes from the 128-seat parliament to win the presidency, thereby breaking a deadlock that has left the country without a head of state since October 2022.
Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, Acting Spokesperson,
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abuja in a statement said Nigeria is looking forward to further strengthen relations with Lebanon.
The statement reads: “Nigeria looks forward to further strengthening our historic, strong, and vibrant relationship for the benefit of all our people.
Lebanon’s parliament has elected the country’s army chief as president, ending a power vacuum that has lasted more than two years.”
Joseph Aoun’s candidacy for the mainly ceremonial role – which is reserved for a Maronite Christian under a sectarian power-sharing system – was backed by several key political parties, as well as the US, France and Saudi Arabia.
A rival preferred by Hezbollah, the powerful Shia Muslim militia and political party supported by Iran, withdrew on Wednesday and endorsed the commander.
His election comes six weeks after Lebanon agreed a ceasefire to end a war between Israel and
Hezbollah, which left the group significantly weakened and devastated areas where it holds sway.
The Lebanese army, which Aoun had led since 2017, was not involved in the conflict and has a key role under the ceasefire deal. It is required to deploy soldiers in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw and to ensure Hezbollah ends its armed presence there by 26 January.
In a speech to lawmakers following his election on Thursday, Aoun declared that “a new phase in Lebanon’s history” had begun.
The 60-year-old pledged to work during his six-year term to ensure that the Lebanese state had “the exclusive right to bear arms” – a reference to Hezbollah, which had built a force considered more powerful than the army to resist Israel before their 13-month conflict, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that ended their last war in 2006.
Aoun said one of his main priorities was repairing the destruction caused by “Israeli aggression” in southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Bekaa Valley during the war, which the World Bank estimates will cost $8.5bn (£6.9bn).
He also promised to push through the political and economic reforms widely seen as necessary in a country that has been affected by multiple crises.
Besides the Hezbollah-Israel conflict, they include a six-year-long economic depression that is one of the worst recorded in modern times, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people
