Tom, Dick and Harry/Africa Summit

Is living in Africa so unpleasant that all 54 African heads of state and government have their bags packed, waiting for any super, former super, upcoming super, pretentiously super, not-so-super, medium and modicum world power to send an invitation to a “Summit,” and all of them will depart at short notice? Must every Tom, Dick […]

Is living in Africa so unpleasant that all 54 African heads of state and government have their bags packed, waiting for any super, former super, upcoming super, pretentiously super, not-so-super, medium and modicum world power to send an invitation to a “Summit,” and all of them will depart at short notice? Must every Tom, Dick and Harry’s invitation to a summit be promptly honoured just because it is taking place at a seaside resort, a mountain retreat or at a hunting lodge?

The British were the first power to invent the art of sending mass invitations to African leaders to come for meetings of the British Commonwealth. They formed it in 1926 and later renamed it Commonwealth of Nations with Queen Elizabeth as the Head. Last year, at a summit in London, the Brits tricked other member states and got them to designate Prince Charles to succeed the Queen as head of the Commonwealth, even though the position is not hereditary.

Trust the French to follow suit by convening the Franco-Africa Summit in 1973. Ten countries attended that first meeting but 40 countries attended the 25th Summit in Nice, France last year. Among those that attended were leaders of non-French speaking countries such as Gambia, Sierra Leone and South Africa. European Union leaders too summoned African leaders to EU/Africa Summits, which took place alternately in Europe and Africa. The Germans are to yet summon African leaders to a summit near the Brandenburg gate. Maybe they are still smarting from their loss of African colonies Togo, Kameron, Tanganyika, Rwanda, Burundi and Namibia in 1919. Not to be left behind, then US President Barack Obama announced in 2013 that he would convene a USA-Africa Summit, which he did in 2014. 50 African leaders attended the meeting; Obama was alarmed that US trade with Africa was $85 billion compared to China’s $200 billion.

Now it became more interesting because India, too, invited African leaders to a summit. Despite its fast-growing economy, India is still a Third World country with many problems similar to Africa’s, yet it invited a few African leaders to meet with its prime minister in Addis Ababa in 2011. Another summit was to hold after three years but the Indians panicked when there was an Ebola outbreak in West Africa and did not convene another one until 2015. At that summit in New Delhi, more than 50 African leaders turned up.

Turkey might not loom so large on the world stage in this century but it summoned all its Ottoman-era prestige in 2008 and invited African leaders to Istanbul for the first Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summit. Fifty African countries sent delegations, many headed by presidents and prime ministers. African leaders will be summoned to Turkey again for the 3rd Turkey-Africa Summit next year.

Current, former, pretending and aspiring world powers had already summoned African leaders to summit meetings so in 2009, emergent super power China followed suit. It convened the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sham-el-Sheikh. In his opening speech, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao splashed gifts on the leaders reminiscent of a traditional African wedding. He pledged to give African countries 10 billion dollars in concessional loans, on top of the 5 billion dollars that China pledged at the Forum’s previous meeting in Beijing in 2006. Wen also pledged to cancel the debts of 31 African countries and to build 100 clean energy projects across Africa. No wonder that at last year’s meeting of this forum in Beijing, all 54 African nations attended, most of them represented by their heads of state.

Africans are largely unaware of the history of rivalry between China and Japan dating back hundreds of years. The Japanese invited African leaders to the Tokyo International Conference for African Development [TICAD] summit last August in the Japanese city of Yokohama. 26 African heads of state and another six vice presidents and prime ministers attended. The annoying thing is that African leaders have a short memory. From the mid-1950s right until the 1980s when the Japanese economy was the world’s second largest, its economic growth rate was best described as a miracle and it was the top exporter of consumer goods to Africa, Japan did not call you guys to a summit and splashed yens on you. Why go now, when Nippon itself has been struggling with sluggish economic growth for three decades?

Last week, 54 African leaders scrambled to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for the Russia/Africa Summit. Sochi was venue of the 2014 Winter Olympics which many Western nations boycotted allegedly due to Russian annexation of Crimea. I suspect that Vladimir Putin took African leaders there so that the facilities will not go waste. We were even lucky that he did not take them to Kursk, site of the largest tank battle in human history in 1943. Or to Stalingrad, now renamed Volgograd, where the Soviet Red Army reduced the German Sixth Army from 600,000 men to 5,000 in 1942-43.

All 54 African states were in Sochi, including 43 heads of state and government. President Buhari returned from there with a bagful of promises, including Russian promises to complete Ajaokuta, build our coastal rail, revive Alscon and give us helicopter gunships to blast Boko Haram out of Lake Chad islands. Unlike the double-faced Westerners, Vladimir Putin knows better than to attach human rights clauses to arms deals. Couldn’t Buhari get all these with a single visit to Moscow instead of going in a crowd of African leaders and meeting with Putin on the sidelines?

The way things are going, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Brazil and Israel will soon summon African leaders for summit meetings. Choice of location is important; I suspect a soon to be convened Iran/Africa Summit will hold at a location near the Strait of Hormuz. Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia will quickly follow suit with Africa summits. Thereafter, an Australia/Africa Summit will hold at a location in the Outback so that African leaders will see kangaroos and saltwater crocodiles. Soon afterwards, Mexico, New Zealand, Serbia and North Korea will convene Africa Summits. Kim Jong-un will host the DPRK/Africa Summit near the sacred mountain where he was recently seen riding a white mare.

Once the world powers are done, international organisations will invite African leaders to summits. Food and Agriculture Organization will convene an FAO/Africa Summit, not in Rome where it is based, but on the Italian island of Lampedusa so that African leaders will see boats full of African migrants rescued from the Mediterranean. UNESCO will soon organize a UNESCO/Africa Summit, not in Paris but on Corsica island, birthplace of Napoleon. The UN’s World Food Program will soon convene a WFP/Africa Summit to complain that African IDPs are depleting its food stocks, even though rich Europeans and North Americans throw away millions of tonnes of food every year.

After the international organisations, NGOs such as Amnesty International will convene an AI/Africa Summit. My favourite NGO, World Wildlife Fund for Nature, could soon summon African leaders to a WWF/Africa Summit to discuss the fate of lions, elephants and rhinos. It however won’t raise the issue of North American bison, which the Whiteman reduced from 60 million in 1500 to about 500,000 today. International Whaling Commission too would convene an IWC/Africa Summit to discuss the fate of whales, sharks and barracuda.

For a change, why can’t we convene a Nigeria/Europe Summit at Kajuru Castle, shortly followed by a Nigeria/Asia Summit at Ikogosi Warm Springs in Ekiti State? Afterwards, President Buhari should convene a Nigeria/North America Summit. Once Donald Trump learns that it will take place near a golf course, he will arrive post-haste in Air Force One, with several AWACS flying as escort.