Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien was due at 2.40 pm. That sounded such prime ministerial precision that everyone thought it would happen. When it did not, everyone knew he would never have come.

Other prime ministers were due; these days in Abuja ‘prime minister’ takes the plural comfortably. No one turned up.

Chretien never was going to visit the people’s market, he was due only to “slip in” on the way from one meeting to another, a spokesman for the Canadian High Commission in Abuja told TerraViva.

“It was not a firm decision to visit the market,” he said. The visit could not take place because of engagements with the Queen that were delayed. So that affected the ten-minute stopover.”

On the other prime ministerial visits there was no word.

“It is disappointing,” said Mario Lavoie from the Forum International de Montreal (FIM), a rare Canadian at the people’s forum. “This was an opportunity for Canada to demonstrate its support to Commonwealth civil society and to parallel this event to summit meetings.”

The government-funded Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has supported several Nigerian civil society organizations (CSOs) to attend the Abuja event, he said. But Lavoie wanted his country to record a stronger presence.

“I just hope Canada will be true to its positon in other fora, and be supportive of the role civil society can play in the Commonwealth,” Lavoie said.

Civil society members missed also a presence of any significance from the other three developed states of the Commonwealth – Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

In event after event taking place day after day, there is almost no presence from the ‘developed’ four.

The people’s forum has been a forum of some people from some countries.