The Opposition Coalition’s party, African Democratic Congress (ADC), has expressed concern over the decision of the United States government to host the Presidents of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal, for high-level commercial talks at the White House on Wednesday without extending same invitation to Nigeria.
In a statement issued by the party’s Interim National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC emphasised that Nigeria’s exclusion from the high-level economic dialogue was a damning international indictment of the President Bola Tinubu administration and its sustained economic mismanagement, weak and incoherent diplomacy, and inability to project Nigeria’s strategic importance on the global stage.
The opposition party stated that African thought leaders have for years 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.
The party, however, said while an American President has emerged who is cutting aid and promoting trade, Nigeria was not invited to the table.
The ADC, while referencing the Americans, said the three-day meeting, which starts on Wednesday, was 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 itself’.
“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 snob, 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 a meeting would hold without Nigeria. This only shows how low this administration has brought our country in the estimation of the world. To add insult onto injury, Nigeria is now being threatened by President Trump with a 10% tariff because of our association with BRICS, which started in January 2025. 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).”
According to ADC, under the APC administration, Nigeria was 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,” he stated.
