On the evening of 31 March 1978 Air Force One landed at Murtala Muhammed International Airport and Jimmy Carter was received by Lt-General Olusegun Obasanjo — at that point the Head of the Federal Military Government — and a 21-gun salute. The Washington Post called it 'the first official state visit by an American leader to black Africa', a deliberate signal from the Carter administration of a re-orientation away from the Kissinger-era tilt toward apartheid South Africa.
The substantive business was conducted at State House, Marina, on 1 April. Carter addressed the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs at the National Arts Theatre — a speech in which he committed the United States to opposing 'all forms of racism' in Southern Africa, and praised Nigeria's role in the OAU's confrontation with Pretoria. The joint communiqué of 2 April 1978 aligned the two governments on the recognition of the MPLA government in Angola, on majority rule in Rhodesia and Namibia, and on the principle that the apartheid regime in South Africa must be dismantled. Carter and Obasanjo also signed agreements on agricultural research and on the placement of Peace Corps volunteers, which had been suspended since the late 1960s. The visit transformed Nigeria–US relations and is generally treated as the high-water mark of the bilateral relationship.