The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has mocked President Bola Tinubu for being excluded from President Donald Trump’s list of leaders from five African nations who were invited to Washington to discuss commercial opportunities.
TheNewsGuru reports that Trump will host leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal for a discussion and lunch at the White House on July 9, the official said.
“President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners,” the official said, referring to the reasons why the meeting was arranged.
On Tuesday, Bolaji Abdullahi, a spokesman for the ADC, reacted to the exclusion of Tinubu from high-level economic talks, calling it a significant international indictment of the APC administration.
Abdullahi attributed this exclusion to ongoing economic mismanagement, weak and inconsistent diplomacy, and the Tinubu administration’s failure to effectively highlight Nigeria’s strategic importance on the global stage.
“For years, African thought leaders have argued that it was about time that the Western World started to engage with African countries as trade partners rather than as hapless recipients of aid.
“Finally, an American President has emerged who is cutting aid and promoting trade. But Nigeria is not invited to the table.
“According to the Americans, the three-day meeting, which starts on Wednesday, is convened to explore commercial opportunities that could benefit both American companies and African partners.
“They said they have invited countries who have demonstrated the ability and willingness, to help themselves.
What this means in plain language, is that under President Tinubu, Nigeria is no longer taken seriously.
“Although we are Africa’s largest economy, with the largest consumer market and Africa’s most influential diaspora, the United States chose to bypass us in favour of nations whose combined GDP is only a fraction of ours.
“With this snub, what the Americans are telling us is that size means nothing without leadership and a demonstrable commitment to efficiency, to transparency and to accountability.
“Only a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that such meeting would hold without Nigeria. This only shows how low this administration has brought our country in the estimation of the world,” Abdullahi stated.
The spokesman also considered it insulting that Nigeria is among the countries being threatened with 10 per cent tariff increase for associating with BRICS.
BRICS is a group of major emerging economies with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as members.
The body, which was founded in 2009, aimed to promote peace, security, development, and cooperation among member countries and to contribute to a more equitable and fair world.
It also serves as a platform for member countries to coordinate their positions in international forums and to pursue their shared interests in global economic and political affairs.
Continuing, Abdullahi said, “The ADC is not opposed to BRICS. But we are opposed to Nigeria punching below its weight by playing in the small league.
“Were Nigeria able to provide the leadership that other African countries expect of us, and which we have competently provided in recent past, we would have been invited to that meeting on Wednesday in Washington.
“And Nigeria would have used the opportunity to push the Africa Union (AU) position on global trade, especially given that our daughter, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala sits at the head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
“But under this APC administration, Nigeria is no longer respected even as a regional leader in ECOWAS, as the regional body has shrunk in size and significance under President Tinubu’s leadership.
“Under this APC administration, once the acknowledged leader of the continent, Nigeria has become an afterthought, reduced to playing with back-water countries like St.Lucia, a country with less than 1% of our GDP and a population less than that of a rural local government in Nigeria.
“Yet, our president was able to spend an entire week in that country, for reasons that the government is still struggling to explain.
“The truth is that APC has not only stalled our economic progress, it has stripped us of the opportunity to sit at the table where real decisions, and real investments that could create jobs boost growth and improve our economy, are being made.
“This is what happens when the government at the centre prioritises politics over performance, and propaganda over progress. As a nation that has led before, and can lead again, we must reject the future the APC seeks to impose on us—one where we are ignored, sidelined, and treated as insignificant. Nigerians must demand better, because Nigeria is too big, too important, and too proud to be left out.”