Africa's leaders leave its journalists out in the cold

By Salamatu Turay

I have had the weekend to think a little, and after the ups and downs of last week - the G8, the Olympics, the bombings - so much has happened, it's difficult to take in.  But there is one unfortunate thing for us as African journalists that stands out from last week.

The nature of the long-awaited support by the G8 leaders to make poverty history was announced by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the final press conference at Gleneagles on Friday, addressing about one hundred journalists from all over the world. But what beats my imagination is that there were close to ten of our leaders at the summit - Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa were all there - but by Friday evening not one of them had said a word to the twenty-odd African journalists there to cover the summit.

That morning, we African journalists had gone to the Gleneagles information desk to find out the time of the African leaders' press conference, but it had not been scheduled.

After the British Prime Minister has briefed us that afternoon, we all left the briefing room en masse to ask the information desk the same question - and received the same answer.  By the time we left Gleneagles on Friday evening, not one of us had been told about any briefings given by the African leaders.

We all boarded the bus back to Edinburgh bitterly disappointed that our leaders had left us in the cold. This was especially painful when we saw other countries' delegations making arrangements to brief their media about the G8 outcomes. And we attended some these other briefings, with interest, and with shame.

At home, it's so hard to get interviews with politicians for local journalists, but when foreign press come, they can get interviews extremely easily. We are used to this kind of treatment back home, but we weren't expecting the same treatment on foreign soil - at an international summit. 

We saw - on TV - the Nigerian President Olufemi Obasanjo, who was lucky to have been given a chance to talk, take to the podium in his 'agbada', without one word to us about the G8 outcomes. All he came out with was along the lines of "we are deeply depressed by the attacks in London yesterday and reaffirm our commitment in the fight against terrorism".

I saw the disappointment on my Nigerian colleagues' faces and I almost shed tears because of the way they treated us. When is this going to change?