Juliana Taiwo
6 July 2009
Abuja — President Umaru Musa YaríAdua will depart Nigeria for Italy on Wednesday to attend the G8 Summit taking place in L'Aquila at the Coppito Guardia di Finanza School between July 8 and 10. The President's advance team departed last night.
This week's meeting will be the third since President Yar'Adua was sworn in on May 29, 2007 and the first he is being invited to attend.
In the last two summits, the G-8 organisers had invited only countries which they described as "the stable and structured" emerging economies, namely China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, while Egypt was invited to represent the Arab, Muslim and Africa.
The non-invitation of Nigeria's President to the last meeting had however attracted reactions from Nigerians. Critics had viewed the development as G8 nation's way of expressing their displeasure with the dispute over the 2007 Presidential election that brought President Yar'Adua to power.
Yar'Adua had at a meeting with leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lamented the absence of Nigeria at the last G8 meeting saying he was saddened by the development.
However, in a letter conveying the invitation of Yar'Adua to this week's summit, which was addressed to the Nigerian Ambassador to Italy, Prince Ehineden Erediuwa, the Personal Representative of the President of the Italian Council of Ministers for Africa, Mr. Luca Riccardi, said Yar'Adua was being invited because President Silvio Berlusconi was personally committed to renewing ties between the G-8 and Africa, especially with Nigeria.
Riccardi, in the letter dated June 12, 2009 stated that Prime Minister Berlusconi "has directed me in the quality of his personal representative to go to His Excellency's country to personally deliver to the President of the Republic, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the invitation to participate at the next G-8 meeting that will take place at L'Aquila the 8th, 9th and 10th July.
As Your Excellency knows, President Berlusconi is personally committed to renew ties with the G-8 and Africa, especially with His Excellency's country".
Nigeria alongside other African Heads of State and Government of Algeria, Egypt, Senegal and South Africa were invited to the G8 in 2001 for the first time to present their New Partnership for Africaís Development (NEPAD) project.
On that occasion the African leaders had reaffirmed the importance of NEPAD for promoting development based on an independent approach to handling problems, sharing responsibility, and cooperating with the G8.
The historic dialogue between Africa and the leading industrially advanced democracies, which first got under way under Italy's G8 presidency at the Summit of 2001 in Genoa, has continued to be pursued at all G8 summits, with the leaders welcoming and showing their support for the proposals illustrated by the African countries by drafting the G8's African Action Plan (AAP), and by institutionalising the role of the G8 countries' personal representative for the African countries on permanent basis.
Africa will be playing a leading role during this yearís Summit and will be able to have its say both in Rome and at the G8 Summit in LíAquila.
Italy has decided to expand the traditional Heiligendamm format (the five emerging economies, namely Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) to include Egypt.
Besides, several African bodies and institutions had been invited to the G8 Development Ministersí meeting.
These include the African Union in which Libya holds the Deputy Presidency and the Commission, the AfDB and NEPAD (represented by Ethiopia, its deputy president, and by the five members of the steering committee: South Africa, Egypt, Senegal, Nigeria and Algeria.
The Group of Eight (G8 formerly known as the Group of Six G6), is a forum, created by France in 1975, for governments of eight nations of the northern hemisphere: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; in addition, the European Union is represented in the group but cannot host or chair the summit.
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