Omokri berates Buhari’s over diverting attention from G-7 snub

The controversies over the non invitation of President Muhammadu Buhari to the 2019 G-7 Summit in France have continued to pitch the President against certain stakeholders in Nigeria. While most Nigerian stakeholders conceived President Buhari to have been snubbed by the club of seven biggest economies in the world because of his leadership failure, or for others, the dwindling status of Nigeria in the international system, the Presidency argued that invitation to the G-7 meeting is rotated between African countries.
Stakeholders like Femi Fani-Kayode, Kingsley Moghalu, Reno Omokri, etc, have chided President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) government for relegating Nigeria celebrated as the giant of Africa or Africa’s largest economy to the periphery of the international political economy which relevance has diminished while Ghana, South Africa, Rwanda, among others, are rising to higher status.
As the controversies rage, Reno Omokri drew attention to what he considered ‘a planted story by the Nigerian Presidency’, claiming that his tweet that General Buhari was not invited to the G 7 Summit because of his misrule is “misleading”; noting that, fortunately, the Presidency did not say he lied but merely said it is misleading.
Omokri observed that the Presidency statement claimed that African nations are invited to the G-7 on a rotational basis; saying this is not true. “African nations are invited to the G-7 based on their economy and their governance and the relevance of both of these to the G-7.

“For instance, the largest economies in Africa will usually be invited, except where such economies have governance challenges arising from misrule or other anti democracies practices, such as compromised elections,” Omokri declared..

He stated that Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy (due to past governments, not the Buhari junta) and should naturally be invited to represent Africa at the G-7. “The claim by the Presidency’s hired guns that Nigeria was not invited due to the rotational invitation policy does not hold water.

“Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame was invited to the 2018 G-7 summit which held in Quebec, Canada, in June of 2018. He is also invited to and is attending the ongoing G-7 summit holding in Biarritz, France, Omokri declared.

He remarked that “if the invitations were done rotationally, as the Presidency’s hired guns would like Nigerians to believe, Kagame would not have been invited to the G-7 back to back. “Kagame was invited back to back because he is relevant to the G-7.”

Omokri reiterated that Nigeria was not invited to the G-7 summit because of governance and democracy challenges; citing an example: “just a week before the summit began, Nigeria was censured for misrule by a G-7 member state.”

It was recalled that on August 18, 2019, just a week before the G-7 summit in France began, the US Department of State released the 2019 Fiscal Transparency Report which classified the President Buhari-led Nigerian government as “not fiscally transparent.”

He insisted that the timing of the release of the 2019 Fiscal Transparency Report was not coincidental. It had followed Travel and Visa Bans by the US government against Nigerian politicians that had undermined the 2019 Nigerian elections of which prominent members of the Buhari junta were targeted, he explained.

Omokri declared: “beyond that, Nigeria, under General Buhari’s misrule, has deteriorated to the point whereby it has been overtaken by Ghana as West Africa’s number one destination for Foreign Direct Investments. We must be aware that the G-7 is above all an Economic Summit. Hence, Ghana was invited and Nigeria was not.”

He maintained that it is obvious that President Buhari was embarrassed by his G-7 snub. Omokri questioned: “Why else would Buhari go to Japan to visit the Japanese Prime Minister at a time when the Japanese leader was in France.”

Omokri decried that only a jobless leader leaves his country to visit another leader, when that leader is not in his country. He emphasized that “a serious leader, knowing that his host did not consider him important enough to be around when he visited, would have sent a minister to represent him.

“But General Buhari went to Japan at the same time the Japanese Prime Minister was in Biarritz, France attending the G-7 summit. That alone tells you how desperate President Buhari is to cover his embarrassing snub.”