By Atilade Atoyebi
President Muhammadu Buhari stepped out of Nigeria recently to attend the 7th Tokyo International Conference for African Development, TICAD, in Yokohama, Japan. The event was billed to last about a week in and out of conference venue. This is now a three yearly event being rotated between Africa and Japan. Over 20 African Presidents and Heads of State were in Japan for the Conference.
The visit of Nigeria’s leader abroad is supposed to be quite simple. So, Buhari’s journey to Japan should be one of those foreign travels his office demands and so ought to be ordinary. That is what his counterparts around the world must cope with as part of their official duties. However, for President Buhari, that is not the case as everyone has come to realize. His overseas trips have now developed a coloration of their own. The Nigerian Government officials as expected kept straight faces about the President’s visit to Japan. His departure was widely reported in multi-media. His entourage which included Governors and Ministers as well as other top ranking members of the Administration was copiously shown in still photos and video clips with the President situated in the scenes. Even the welcome reception in Japan was well covered by the local media here in Nigeria. So also was his participation in the Conference.
The President received in audience the President of Bene Republic, Patrice Talon who told President Buhari that the partial closure of the border by Nigeria was hurting the economy of his country. Rice smuggling from Bene Republic into Nigeria was the reason why the border was partially closed. The Nigerian leader told his counterpart from Bene Republic. Buhari also had a meeting with South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa. The meeting was an opportunity for him to complain against the killing of Nigerians in South Africa.
The Japan trip took place in the middle of breaking story about the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI ‘capture ‘ of 80 Nigerians who were alleged to have been committing cyber related crimes in the United States. The Nigerian leader at every opportunity he had while in Japan to emphasize that the cyber-crime suspects did not represent the face of Nigeria, explaining that the country is blessed with men and women of honest dispositions, going about their businesses at home and abroad. He emphasized this point while extending invitation to prospective Japanese investors. That was not all. There was even a bilateral meeting between Nigeria and Japan personally led by the President of the two countries. It was at the meeting that President Buhari asked his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe for assistance in combating sea piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Back home in Nigeria, President Buhari’s trip to Japan to attend the Japan/Africa summit played into the hands of the opposition and his strident critics. For example, some of them wondered why Buhari would choose to go to Japan while some of his counterparts in Africa were at the Group of 7, industrialized nations (G7) summit in Biarritz, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. The President’s critics classified the trip to Japan as ‘misplaced priority’ on the part of the Nigerian leader. His media aids would not allow the criticism to go unnoticed. A release was promptly issued ‘to correct’ the impression that Buhari had chosen to go to the wrong direction. The core message in the official statement was a reminder that shortly after his inauguration in 2015 as the new President of Nigeria, he attended the G7 meeting in Germany but on the invitation of the Group. If you are not a member of G7, you needed invitation to attend its summit and that is only when some initiatives about your country or region is on its agenda for discussion. The assertion by the President’s men gained further weight when a widely circulating newspaper in Nigeria, The Guardian carried out its own fact-checks on some of the impressions in the tweets of Reno Okri, a constant critic of the Administration who also felt that Buhari should have been in France for the G7 summit and not in Japan. The Guardian picked holes in Okri’s tweets pointing out the facts and his wrong impressions.
The President received a crop of Nigerians resident in Japan and video clips from the meeting suggested that many of them that have been successful in their callings and professions are willing to lend helping hands to the development of their country. Even some people took to the social media to downplay the significance of the meeting.
Then there was the threat by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, a secessionist movement in Nigeria that it would hold public demonstration against President Buhari in Japan. IPOB was assuming a fresh air of ability to mount protest anywhere in the world especially with the attack in Nuremberg, Germany, on the former Deputy President of the Senate who is still a serving member of Nigeria’s Upper Chamber, Ike Ekweremadu. The Nigerian lawmaker had been invited to give a keynote address at the annual Yam Festival organized by a group of Southeasterners living in Nuremberg. The Festival is popular back in their homestead in Nigeria. The video clip of Ekweremadu scampering to safety from the venue of the event while he was being pelted with stones, yam, stick and other items hands could reach went viral. That was in August. However, despite all the social media indications that IPOB men abroad were about to stage another protest, this time against the Nigerian leader, nothing worthy of note happened. The hoax, as the President’s men described the purported threat of IPOB made some ripples in the news though.
On balance, the struggle is underway between alert spokesmen of government and those who have chosen not to give this Administration a breathing space, especially through the social media. In the days ahead, the tangible results or lack of them of the President’s participation in the 7th Japan/African summit will engage the attention of the media here in Nigeria.
By Atilade Atoyebi
President Muhammadu Buhari stepped out of Nigeria recently to attend the 7th Tokyo International Conference for African Development, TICAD, in Yokohama, Japan. The event was billed to last about a week in and out of conference venue. This is now a three yearly event being rotated between Africa and Japan. Over 20 African Presidents and Heads of State were in Japan for the Conference.
The visit of Nigeria’s leader abroad is supposed to be quite simple. So, Buhari’s journey to Japan should be one of those foreign travels his office demands and so ought to be ordinary. That is what his counterparts around the world must cope with as part of their official duties. However, for President Buhari, that is not the case as everyone has come to realize. His overseas trips have now developed a coloration of their own. The Nigerian Government officials as expected kept straight faces about the President’s visit to Japan. His departure was widely reported in multi-media. His entourage which included Governors and Ministers as well as other top ranking members of the Administration was copiously shown in still photos and video clips with the President situated in the scenes. Even the welcome reception in Japan was well covered by the local media here in Nigeria. So also was his participation in the Conference.
The President received in audience the President of Bene Republic, Patrice Talon who told President Buhari that the partial closure of the border by Nigeria was hurting the economy of his country. Rice smuggling from Bene Republic into Nigeria was the reason why the border was partially closed. The Nigerian leader told his counterpart from Bene Republic. Buhari also had a meeting with South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa. The meeting was an opportunity for him to complain against the killing of Nigerians in South Africa.
The Japan trip took place in the middle of breaking story about the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI ‘capture ‘ of 80 Nigerians who were alleged to have been committing cyber related crimes in the United States. The Nigerian leader at every opportunity he had while in Japan to emphasize that the cyber-crime suspects did not represent the face of Nigeria, explaining that the country is blessed with men and women of honest dispositions, going about their businesses at home and abroad. He emphasized this point while extending invitation to prospective Japanese investors. That was not all. There was even a bilateral meeting between Nigeria and Japan personally led by the President of the two countries. It was at the meeting that President Buhari asked his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe for assistance in combating sea piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Back home in Nigeria, President Buhari’s trip to Japan to attend the Japan/Africa summit played into the hands of the opposition and his strident critics. For example, some of them wondered why Buhari would choose to go to Japan while some of his counterparts in Africa were at the Group of 7, industrialized nations (G7) summit in Biarritz, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. The President’s critics classified the trip to Japan as ‘misplaced priority’ on the part of the Nigerian leader. His media aids would not allow the criticism to go unnoticed. A release was promptly issued ‘to correct’ the impression that Buhari had chosen to go to the wrong direction. The core message in the official statement was a reminder that shortly after his inauguration in 2015 as the new President of Nigeria, he attended the G7 meeting in Germany but on the invitation of the Group. If you are not a member of G7, you needed invitation to attend its summit and that is only when some initiatives about your country or region is on its agenda for discussion. The assertion by the President’s men gained further weight when a widely circulating newspaper in Nigeria, The Guardian carried out its own fact-checks on some of the impressions in the tweets of Reno Okri, a constant critic of the Administration who also felt that Buhari should have been in France for the G7 summit and not in Japan. The Guardian picked holes in Okri’s tweets pointing out the facts and his wrong impressions.
The President received a crop of Nigerians resident in Japan and video clips from the meeting suggested that many of them that have been successful in their callings and professions are willing to lend helping hands to the development of their country. Even some people took to the social media to downplay the significance of the meeting.
Then there was the threat by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, a secessionist movement in Nigeria that it would hold public demonstration against President Buhari in Japan. IPOB was assuming a fresh air of ability to mount protest anywhere in the world especially with the attack in Nuremberg, Germany, on the former Deputy President of the Senate who is still a serving member of Nigeria’s Upper Chamber, Ike Ekweremadu. The Nigerian lawmaker had been invited to give a keynote address at the annual Yam Festival organized by a group of Southeasterners living in Nuremberg. The Festival is popular back in their homestead in Nigeria. The video clip of Ekweremadu scampering to safety from the venue of the event while he was being pelted with stones, yam, stick and other items hands could reach went viral. That was in August. However, despite all the social media indications that IPOB men abroad were about to stage another protest, this time against the Nigerian leader, nothing worthy of note happened. The hoax, as the President’s men described the purported threat of IPOB made some ripples in the news though.
On balance, the struggle is underway between alert spokesmen of government and those who have chosen not to give this Administration a breathing space, especially through the social media. In the days ahead, the tangible results or lack of them of the President’s participation in the 7th Japan/African summit will engage the attention of the media here in Nigeria.