By Timothy Karikari in Beijing and Julie Frimpong-Ansah in Accra

A month ago, more than twenty African leaders including the continent’s largest economies Nigeria and South Africa were guests of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the 7^th Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD) summit. Analogous to other global conferences on Africa, the theme for the 7^th TICAD was “Advancing Africa’s Development through People, Technology and Innovation”. Whereas we believe African leaders responded to the invitation for obvious reasons such as trade and cooperation, Prime Minister Abe and the leadership of Japan certainly had their objectives as well.