Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in Abuja on 3 December 2003 for the 18th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), formally opened by the Queen on 5 December at the new International Conference Centre. Her arrival speech invoked her 1956 tour: 'I have vivid memories of my first visit to Nigeria forty-seven years ago.' She invested Olusegun Obasanjo with the personal Royal Victorian Chain (Nigeria having returned to the Commonwealth in May 1999), held audience with the Sultan of Sokoto and the Ooni of Ife, and visited a Commonwealth-funded science project at the University of Abuja.
The political business of CHOGM Abuja was dominated by the question of Zimbabwe's continued suspension over the conduct of the 2002 presidential election. Robert Mugabe boycotted; Thabo Mbeki argued for re-admission; Obasanjo and the Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon argued for continued suspension. The Commonwealth voted to extend the suspension, and Zimbabwe formally withdrew from the Commonwealth shortly afterwards. The Queen never returned to Nigeria; this was her last visit before her death in September 2022.