Options for refocusing Nigeria’s foreign policy
Ayo Olukotun
Nigeria presents itself to the world in stark, disturbing images, as a place difficult to work and live in. Tuesday’s Savage bombing in Maiduguri market by Boko Haram, the ongoing nationwide strike of doctors with its tales of agony reinforce the images of anguish and the waste of human lives. Just behind that unlovely and unattractive exterior however, is a land radiating buoyancy in the face of adversity; inventiveness, daring and occasionally excellent strivings mirrored in the quality of intellectual discourse by its professionals.
To take an example, last week’s Annual Conference of the Nigerian Society of International Affairs (NSIA) held at the NIIA, Lagos on Wednesday and Thursday enabled scholars from across the country to debate and exhaustively brainstorm on policy options for refocusing foreign policy in the light of contemporary challenges at home and abroad.
The travails of the Society reflect those of the Nigerian State. Founded in the 1970’s by the likes of Professors Bolaji Akinyemi, Alaba Ogunsanwo, Ibrahim Gambari and Akinjide Osuntokun who straddle the academia and policy making, the Society died in the 1990’s and was resurrected by the duo of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and Lead City University in 2012. Professor Jide Owoeye, President of the Society and Chairman, Governing Council of Lead City University alluded to the revival of the academic organ of the association: the Nigerian Journal of International Studies, which was off the shelves for two decades but has now been published twice along with proceedings of the last Annual Conference.
After a Welcome Address from Professor Bola Akinterinwa, Director General of the NIIA, a goodwill message from Erelu Abiola Dosunmu and a keynote address from Ambassador Tayo Ogunsulire, we settled down to the business of listening to and critiquing the papers.
The academic discussions were carried on in the light of Dosunmu’s charge to the association to come up with policy-relevant insights and suggestions that can assist the country in tackling current existential challenges in particular the ongoing war on terror. Unsurprisingly, several presentations connected the issue of Boko Haram and how to evolve appropriate domestic and foreign policies to contain it.
For example, Abimbola Owojori of the Nigeria Police Academy, Wudil, in a paper entitled ‘Transnational Terrorism and Nigeria-Cameroon Relations: An Assessment’ suggested the need for Nigeria and her neighbours to institute bi-lateral and multi-lateral strike forces consisting of the Cameroonian, Nigerian, Chadian and Nigerien military forces. Owojori went on to argue that ‘ such special forces using surveillance assets should be used to find insurgent and bandit camps identifying their supplying routes, rest areas, and the other infrastructure’.
Although government is already exploring the possibilities of these kinds of collaborations it obviously needs to develop a strategic doctrine based on military and diplomatic alignments with our neighbours. Still on that point, it would be recalled that the Lamido of Adamawa revealed in the early days of the now elongated National Conference that a greater part of his kingdom lies in the Republic of Cameroon. Has government, in the light of these facts, fully harnessed the intercessory and adjudicatory capacity of such senior citizens? A related question concerns whether the war on terror is located, like the Nigerian State, above the people without fully enlisting or indeed mobilizing the energies of the local people that live and earn their livelihood in the interstices of the Nigeria-Cameroon border.
Several other papers such as ‘Boko Haram: Periscoping ‘the invasion’ of Nigeria’ by Hassan Saliu, ‘Boko Haram and the Internationalization of Nigeria’s Domestic Terrorism’, ‘Understanding the Tactics and Technologies of Terrorists’, ‘External Interventions and Nigeria’s National Security’ as well as ‘The Role of Political Parties in the Management of Boko Haram Insurgency’ are mainly policy analytic papers teasing out prescriptions for responding to and managing the war on terror.
One issue on which there is ambivalence concerns the policing of our North-eastern border by a multi-national force with more countries such as far away Australia offering to help Nigeria. Obviously, such a diplomatic downturn creates for Nigeria especially in the wake of the Chibok girls’ abduction saga a pronounced image problem. This is to the extent that the country is now viewed internationally not as the giant of Africa which her endowments and self presentation suggest but as the sick man of Africa whose state and military are so enfeebled that it is in need of global rescue.
There is also the point that the presence within our shores of foreign military and intelligence forces opens us up to external penetration on a scale that can only be imagined, for obviously such crises are used by nations to spy on or collect data at source from afflicted nations. The debate on this point went on for a while with several analysts suggesting that Nigeria should determine the duration which should be brief as well as the scope of the multinational interventions thus mitigating the risks of exposure to international military institutions and intelligence.
Another strand of scholarly opinion considers Nigeria’s bungling as an extension of incoherence, corruption, and vacillation. It was argued, for example, that there is a connection between the outright embezzlement of huge amounts appropriated for the defence sector since 1999 and the below par and flabby outing of our military in recent times. In other words, as Emeritus Akinjide Osuntokun consistently reminded us, foreign policy is a continuation of domestic politics and policy by other means.
The paper on the role of political parties in managing the Boko Haram challenge spoke to the need to forge interparty elite consensus on the war on terror rather than perpetuate the current divisiveness. What we have at the moment is the unhealthy situation where rather than politics stopping at the borders, as the British would put it, the fortunes of the war on terror are exploited by the opposition to knock the government as incompetent; while government accuses the opposition of fueling and even sponsoring the Boko Haram insurgency.
There were papers too on ‘Nigeria and the Challenges of the New China-Africa Relations’, ‘Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol: Implications for Nigeria’s Economy’, and ‘The Role of the National Assembly in Nigeria’s foreign Policy Process’. For example, the paper on the national assembly argues that there is a need to close the existing gap with respect to carrying the National Assembly along in the foreign policy process.
As argued by Professor Victor Adetula, author of the paper, ‘there is need to strategically plan towards strengthening the capacity of the National Assembly in order to improve the quality of its input into the foreign policy process. Majority of the legislators lack the necessary skills and experience required to understand and analyse issues and themes in international relations’. This speaks to a broader deficiency of the legislature in the policy making; obviously our foreign policy will benefit tremendously if the legislature begins to play its assigned role in shaping the foreign policy agenda.
It was an intellectual feast no doubt with several of the papers shedding light on Nigeria’s travails in the domestic and foreign arenas suggesting as well ways to overcome the current miasma.
· Olukotun is Professor of Political Science and Dean, Faculty of the Social Sciences, Lead City University, Ibadan
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