Emek.a Anyaoku and Akintola Williams.

Measures for re-establishing Nigeria’s leadership position

I now turn to my recommendations of what should be done if Nigeria is to return to a leadership position in international affairs especially now that we live in an increasingly globalising world.

For every country, there is a nexus between foreign policy and domestic politics. Thus, no country can maintain a credible leadership position regionally, continentally or globally without a politically stable and sound socio-economic domestic background. And so, for any country to be able to exert a credible influence and maintain a leadership position to be reckoned with in world affairs, it must achieve a reasonable balance between its domestic and foreign policies.

In his book: “Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order”, Richard N. Haass, President of the U.S’. Council on Foreign Relations, reiterated this symbiotic relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy when he wrote that the U.S. needed a new approach to both domestic and foreign policy because “the two are intimately intertwined: Americans will not enjoy the standard of living or quality of life they aspire to at home amid chaos abroad; and the U.S will not be in a position to limit chaos abroad unless it rebuilds the foundations of its strength at home”.

Accordingly, every country’s standing in the world is to a large extent determined by its domestic situation. If Nigeria is to return to the golden age of the country’s foreign policy achievements and high global standing, its domestic situation must be fixed. Fixing Nigeria’s domestic situation requires that the challenge of political stability as well as its economy and the socio-economic welfare of its citizens must be tackled.

Ensuring the welfare of Nigerian citizens will, I believe, fundamentally lessen their temptation to migrate abroad and subject themselves to death in the Mediterranean Sea as well as to unacceptable treatment in the countries of their destination.

I have consistently expressed the view that to achieve greater political stability and deserving socio-economic development in the country, thereby tackling the worsening challenges it currently faces in many sectors, Nigeria must restructure its present “unitarist” governance architecture by returning to the true federalism which our founding fathers negotiated and wisely agreed in the 1960/63 Constitution to be the most suitable structure for the stability and development of our multi-ethnic and multi-religious country.

With the number and nature of the ongoing agitations in several parts of the country, our present leadership, including, especially the Senate which two weeks ago rejected a motion for devolution of powers, seem to be indifferent to the fact that Nigeria is currently sleep-walking to a national disaster.

Restructuring will enable us create fewer and more viable federating units for planning and pursuit of economic development and, with more powers devolved to them, deal with the issue of “do-or-die” political competition for the control of the all-powerful center which by exacerbating the inherent divisive tendencies in our citizenry is largely responsible for the country’s political instability and many of its socio-economic ills including the evil of massive corruption.

And we can only fix our economy by diversifying it and making it less dependent on revenue from the export of crude oil. This is especially so, now that more and more crude oil importing countries are announcing plans for facing out their reliance on fossil fuel. We must industrialise the country by embarking more vigorously on policies that support the local manufacturing of our needs. The diversification of the Nigerian economy must also entail focusing much more actively on the development of the agricultural and solid mineral sectors.

Besides, fixing the home front must include the leaders in our government, in our corporate sector, and in all our governmental and non-governmental institutions becoming more concerned with tackling the factors that have earned for Nigeria abroad such adverse national reputation as being on the list of the most corrupt countries and the list of fragile states i.e. potential failed states.

Against the continuing changes in African and global circumstances, Nigeria must from time to time review the strategic objectives and operation of its foreign policy.

The strategic objectives should, in my view, be: first, to raise Nigeria’s international position and influence by becoming in the global reckoning an acknowledged Middle Power and member of the groups of G20 and BRICS; secondly, to pursue its external economic relations especially, with the view of promoting its exports and importation of foreign direct investments; thirdly, to render whenever necessary appropriate care to Nigerian citizens abroad; and, of course, fourthly, to maintain cordial relations with all our diplomatic partner countries.

To achieve these objectives, it is important that the government should pay greater attention to the adequate maintenance of the two principal machineries for the formulation and execution of the country’s foreign policy namely, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian diplomatic missions abroad.

It is regrettable that our diplomatic missions abroad have continued to be inadequately funded with results that undermine the image of the country and the efficiency of the missions themselves. The conduct of foreign policy is never cheap in any country and so, I urge the government to ensure adequate budgeting for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all the diplomatic missions that it decides to sustain abroad after a careful review.

There is also the need for Nigeria to always articulate an effective campaign strategy whenever its candidates are vying for positions in international organisations. This is what is done by every country that is successful in winning desired international positions for its citizens.

Nigeria should also endeavour to reclaim its place and influence in the West Africa sub-region. ECOWAS is critical to Nigeria for economic and security reasons, and also because it is the country’s primary sphere of influence. And Nigeria must work to ensure that ECOWAS dwells more actively on inter-state infrastructural development, especially in the areas of transport and power in order to promote greater cohesion and integration of the sub-region.

So also should Nigeria similarly, for security and economic reasons, pay greater attention to promoting cooperation in its other sub-regional associations namely, the Gulf of Guinea Commission and the River Niger and Lake Chad Basin Commissions.

Finally, to this list of recommendations, I should add that our three past presidents (Obasanjo, the late Umaru Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan) respectively acknowledged that the existence of the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) on International Affairs which I chaired for 14 years was helpful to their administrations. There is therefore an inherent benefit in having a council of a small team (there were only six of us) of suitable retired senior ambassadors and academics in the field of international relations, being available to meet periodically and advise the president on the strategic objectives and execution of Nigeria’s foreign policy.

I would say from my experience, that it is important that such a council should offer its advice directly and in non-public ways to the president since it must not be seen to be interfering in the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is rightly the public agent for expressing and conducting Nigeria’s foreign policy. This was why in all my 14 years as chairman of the PAC, I, very seldom spoke to the press about the issues covered in the Council’s advice to the President.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to say that if truth be told, there is now a growing number of sceptics of the description of Nigeria as the giant of Africa, a description that was universally considered credible for a long time since the country’s independence. The scepticism is largely because of the existence of unresolved serious challenges in Nigeria’s domestic affairs.

However, I am confident that endowed as it is with such rich human and material resources, provided its leaders acknowledge the seriousness of the internal challenges currently confronting the country and proceed to successfully tackle them, Nigeria will surely not only achieve political stability and development at home, but also will return to playing a leadership role in the sub-region, in Africa, and in the wider international community.

Text of a lecture delivered by former Commonwealth Secretary-General Chief Emeka Anyaoku at the Annual Akintola Williams distinguished lecture series in commemoration of the doyen of accountancy’s 98th birthday in Lagos.