Dr. Ben Carson’s presidential campaign cancelled an upcoming trip to Africa Thursday, citing worries about security of the candidate.
According to campaign spokesman Doug Watts, Carson’s week-long trip was cancelled due to “significant security concerns.” The 2016 hopeful was supposed to embark on the trip two days after Christmas, with stops in Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia on the docket.
Watts told the Associated Press that going ahead with the trip “wasn’t prudent given the information we were provided.” Carson was granted Secret Service protection in November, along with Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Carson announced the trip on Dec. 7, and told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he planned to trace his ancestry and visit a hospital that is dedicated in his honor.
“I think a lot of our policy in the future is going to affect Africa,” Carson said when announcing the trip. “[M]y ancestors are from the Kenya-Tanzania region, the Turkana tribe. I’ve had all of that traced back, to Nigeria. I want to get an idea from the people what the effects of Boko Haram are, what people are thinking, to see what the economic situation is there.”
The former neurosurgeon is currently ranked seventh in the Washington Examiner‘s latest batch of power rankings.
