Nigerian PolitricksIn July, presidents of the eight most industrialised countries of the world, the Group of Eight (G8), will be holding the group's annual meeting in the Russian Republic to map out their global economic strategies. As is now customary with G8 meetings, leaders are invited from around the world to represent regional and global interests.
As we write this, authoritative information at our disposal has it that Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has been invited to the G8 meeting; so also has Sassou Nguesso of the Congo who is the new chairman of the African Union (AU). Against this background, it is certainly curious that at press time, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo is yet to receive the invitation of the world's most powerful leaders.
Without doubt, this is a huge sea-change for Nigeria and our president. Last year in Gleneagles, President Obasanjo was one of the more prominent regional leaders at the G8 meeting in Scotland, leading the way in the campaign for debt relief which Nigeria got and then used to work its way out of the Paris Club of creditors. In fact, every recent G8 meeting has featured both Obasanjo and Mbeki, as conspicuously as possible, to state the case for Africa. And on every occasion, they did so with all the moral and persuasive force in the world.
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