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Former German Chancellor Wants Nigeria As G8 MemberFormer German Chancellor Wants Nigeria As G8 Member
This Day
Paul Ohia
8 June 2007
Former German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt has called for the inclusion of Nigeria and other countries in the Group of Eight (G industrialized nations in order to tackle global issues more effectively.
According to him, the annual summit of the group will be ineffective in tackling global issues without an expansion to include major developing countries like China, India, Brazil or Nigeria.
In order to further its influence over the world economy, an expansion of the G8 that brings in these nations is necessary, Schmidt told German Phoenix TV. 'The lever, which these eight represent altogether, is much too short,' he said.
Schmidt, who co-initiated the annual summit of rich nations back in the 1970s, also said that he did not have high expectations of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. Such a 'medium event' rarely achieves concrete results, he added.
The concept of a forum for the world's major industrialized nations emerged following the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent global recession.
Meanwhile, [color=blue]President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is participating at this year's meeting Germany.[/colro] He was invited by the G8 as one of Africa's outreach group, which also includes the leaders of Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia, Senegal and Ghana, current chair of the African Union (AU). The summit entered its second session yesterday as protesters kept tension high leading to the arrest of more than 300 activists. Several thousand of the protesters clashed with riot police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds that blocked roads and railways leading to the site of the meeting, the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.
Eight police officers were injured, and 15 demonstrators were detained, a police spokesman, Luedger Behrens, told Reuters. He said the police used force after being pelted with stones. While the protests had little effect on the leaders - who were flown by helicopter from Rostock, the nearest major city, to Heiligendamm - the protestors did manage to foil some of the elaborate security precautions for the summit. The police had erected a 7.5-mile-long fence, completely cutting off the resort, and had banned any protests within 200 yards of the fence. By midday, though, an estimated 10,000 demonstrators - many wearing clown makeup and tinted hair - had penetrated the restricted zone and massed at the fence. Evading checkpoints by crossing through oat fields, protesters also blocked main roads leading from the Rostock airport to the summit site. After numerous standoffs, some lasting several hours, riot police clad in helmets waded into the crowd, occasionally swinging truncheons.
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