FACT CHECK: Reno Omokri claims about Buhari’s absence in 2019 G-7 summit misleading

By Timileyin Omilana |   27 August 2019   |   6:04 pm


French President François Hollande (second from left) gestured next to U.S. President Barack Obama (left) and other G7 summit participants and outreach delegates at a family picture event at the G7 summit at the Elmau castle in Krün near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, June 8, 2015. Photo: Reuters/Christian Hartmann

A viral tweet by Reno Omokri, a former presidential aide, with claims that Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was not invited to the Group of Seven (G-7) summit due to Buhari’s “misrule” is misleading.

The G7 summit or ‘Group of Seven’, meets each year, bringing together the heads of state and government of the world’s seven largest so-called advanced economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus the presidents of the European Commission and European Council.

Traditionally, representatives of other nations and international organisations are also invited to attend. 2019 edition was held on 24–26 August 2019 in France.

A Twitter post, already retweeted 420 times with a 2017 G-7 summit picture of U.S. President Donald Trump and Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, Omokri claimed that “Nigeria has deteriorated under General Buhari’s misrule” hence the miss-out.

“President of @AfDB_Group Devt Bank, @akin_adesina, was invited to the G-7 summit, while Buhari was not invited. LIFELESS versus LIVELY,”

Omokri tweeted.

The picture, taken by Getty Images’s Sean Gallup shows Trump chatting with Adesina after a group photo for the G7 Outreach Program on the second and last day of the G7 Taormina summit on the island of Sicily on May 27, 2017, in Taormina, Italy.

Moreover, findings by The Guardian shows that countries oftentimes do not get invited for the summit every year as there are a limited number of nations to be invited.

In the last five years only one African country, Senegal, has been invited to the summit more than Nigeria. The country was invited in 2019, 2018 and 2015.

Nigeria was invited to the summit in 2015 and 2017. This is as much as other African countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, Ethiopia, which were invited twice in the last five years.

Buhari attended the 2015 edition hosted by Germany on June 7–8, 2015.

He was absent for the 2017 edition held on May 26–27, 2017 in Taormina in Sicily, Italy. Buhari was represented by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo who was the acting president then due to Buhari’s medical visit to London.

Buhari left Nigeria on May 7, 2017, and returned on August 9, 2017, for treatment of an undisclosed ailment, transferring power to Osinbajo.

Mynd44:
Reno Omokri has his customers who eats up his lies without a single thought. These people are not going to disbelieve what he said eve if the truth is injected into them. They want to be lied to and Reno is there for them.

Zionista:
For everyone supporting how Nigeria is being governed now, may your lives be exactly how Nigeria is right now. Say a big Amen. Your testimony is around the corner.

You attract what you like. May your business be run like NEPA/PHCN/EKEDP/IKEDP/BEDP/IBEDP etc

Mynd44:
Reno Omokri has his customers who eats up his lies without a single thought. These people are not going to disbelieve what he said eve if the truth is injected into them. They want to be lied to and Reno is there for them.

sonnie10:
Where is Buhari? . 2015 pic

naptu2:
1) Why didn't President Buhari attend the G7 summit in France?

(I have had to answer this kind of question in the past when GEJ did not attend a G8 summit. It's sad that I have to answer it again years later)

No African country is a member of the G7. However, G7 (or G8 as it then was) countries decided to invite African countries to their meetings, so that they can talk about the development of the African continent.

However, they do not invite the same countries every time. They rotate it. President Buhari has attended the G7 summit before and he might still attend future summits, but the fact that he was not there this year does not matter at all.


2) Why is TICAD7 being held in Japan. The Tokyo International Conference on African Development is being organised by the Government of Japan, the African Union, the United Nations and other organisations. There's absolutely nothing wrong in holding the conference in the country that pays most of the bills of the conference.

However, that does not mean that it cannot be held in Africa. TICAD6 was held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2016.

EdiAbali:



The language you use shows you are an Islamist,
You're a Nairaland mod in Islamic section, you are the one who ask Christians to deny Jesus and accept Allah and his Prophet Muhammad before they can comment on thread from Islamic section while on front page.

You have banned many users who don't agree with ya opinion.

Hardly see you comments on Fulani jihadist herdsmen.
Change your ways.
Don't bring Muslim thread to front page of you don't want every humans to comment on it.

EdiAbali:



The language you use shows you are an Islamist,
You're a Nairaland mod in Islamic section, you are the one who ask Christians to deny Jesus and accept Allah and his Prophet Muhammad before they can comment on thread from Islamic section while on front page.

You have banned many users who don't agree with ya opinion.

Hardly see you comments on Fulani jihadist herdsmen.
Change your ways.
Don't bring Muslim thread to front page of you don't want every humans to comment on

Auladimeji2:
One thing still baffles me about Reno Omokri, he claim to be a Christian, a pastor for that matter and he lies alot.Is it that Christian of nowadays can lie

Mynd44:
Reno Omokri has his customers who eats up his lies without a single thought. These people are not going to disbelieve what he said eve if the truth is injected into them. They want to be lied to and Reno is there for them.

Auxtin85:


Same question goes to Osinbajo