RE: OJO MADUEKWE’S “CITIZENSHIP DIPLOMACY”
Akintokunbo A Adejumo

“Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best”. -  Max Beerbohm

Nigeria’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, who spoke recently at a book presentation by former Minister of Education, Professor Tunde Adeniran, in Abuja , announced a “retaliatory” foreign policy, warning that any country that presents Nigeria as corrupt without showcasing the intellect of Nigerians would be declared a “hostile nation”. He further said that it is geared towards “protecting” the image and integrity of Nigeria and retaliates against countries who are hostile and who brand Nigeria as “corrupt”.

While Chief Ojo Maduekwe’s statement is very commendable, we should look beyond mere rhetoric, as all our leaders and representatives have been posturing over the decades. The problem is that most of them do not mean what they say, and neither do they practice what they preach, not only to their fellow Nigerians, but also to the world in general. In most cases, our rulers come up with great ideas and words to that effect and espouse seemingly noble causes that will make the country’s image, and indeed, the lives of their people better, but end up not doing anything at all. Of course, Nigerians are used to this, but it is our sincere hope that this will not the same way as things have been going since independence.

On the face of it, I quite agree with Maduekwe’s new diplomatic policy – that is, encouraging other countries to promote the positive aspects of Nigeria and Nigerians and not just the negative and derogatory. We are also in agreement that for every single 419 fraudster and corrupt instance, there are hundreds of Nigerians all over the world who should be recognised positively for the positive image they portray of Nigeria and Nigerians. There is no doubt about this.

However, charity begins at home, so they say and should apply. What the Honourable Minister, and the rest of the Nigerian Government should be applying their energy and efforts to, is contributing to this new image by exorcising the devil in their own midst. The fact remains that corruption is still endemic in Nigeria . We still have the cases of the corrupt ex-governors pending and from the antics of our own Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, SAN, flexing a lot of unnecessary, misplaced  and misinformed muscles with the EFCC (This man is definitely compromised and an interested party with another ex-governor’s EFCC case, and should be made to declare his interests) in the Orji Kalu case, it seems they are bent on quashing the case, and letting Kalu go scot-free - and there is a real concern for us about this development. This does not bode well for Nigeria or for the stance of Maduekwe and the government he represents.  

Another instance is the shenanigan of the Speaker of the House, Patricia Etteh, a former hair-dresser, who has proved to us that what a Nigerian man can do in terms of corruption, a Nigerian woman can surely do better. Her silence has been deafening on this issue of the house renovation contract scam. If the Number 4 citizen of Nigeria can be involved in such a mess, what is the point of asking the world to have a positive image of Nigeria , and threatening brimstone and fire on those countries that do not? 

With several corrupt former Governors still parading themselves imperiously on the streets of Abuja, still on the beck and call of the President, and appear seemingly untouchable, it will be hard to convince the world that we are still waging this war against corruption in government in earnest and with sincerity of purpose. And this renders Ojo Maduekwe’s utterances useless, and unfortunately irrelevant.

Chief Maduekwe explained further: “Our foreign policy has come of age and the age of innocence is over. We remain proud of our track record right from Tafawa Balewa up till now. The country that has the largest black nation in the world could not have done otherwise. A world where every six black man is a Nigerian could not have done otherwise, or where every four Africans is a Nigerian could not have done otherwise. We should ask ourselves some hard questions: to what extents has our foreign policy benefited Nigerians? To what extent has our foreign policy put food on our tables? In other words, where is the citizen in our foreign policy?”

We are very high and famous on good intentions, but low on implementations. The former Education Minister, Tunde Adeniran himself, presenting a book; what was his achievement as the education minister during Obasanjo’s administration? What positive changes did he bring about in the education sector during his tenure that warrants him writing a book?

Despite all these, we are glad to know that at least a Nigerian Government is starting to take note and make moves to address the problems of Nigeria ’s negative global image. It has long been overdue, but as mentioned above, we cannot embark on such moves without putting our own house in order. It might well turn out to be an exercise in futility. It is generally acknowledged  that the Obasanjo Administration spent a lot of money, time and effort on redeeming the image of Nigeria by being the first Nigerian government in recent memory to actually try to tackle corruption, albeit patently unsuccessful and selective, laden with political vindictiveness and without much respect and reference to the rule of law and constitutionality. Also the immediate past administration went on a publicity and charm offensive to persuade the world that Nigeria is not all about corruption. This must be commended, but we are all aware that we have a lot more to do. Not rhetoric and posturing or muscle-flexing against an already, wrongly or rightly, biased world. 

So in a way, I agree with the words of Ojo Maduekwe, to the effect that it is an obvious fact that Nigerians are perceived in several ways, - in a negative light - more often than not. However, there is an urgent need to do a lot more, rather than wait for that 'someone' or 'the government' or 'the society' to heal the wounds that we all carry around - our cultural identity as “Nigerian”.

All over the world, it is a known fact that one out of every black person is a Nigerian and every four African is a Nigerian. Our duties towards redeeming the image of the black race is beyond what lip-service can do. A little bit from each and everyone of us counts. Standing out of the crowd for something good, can, and will surely make a difference. We have to start a sharing of responsibilities, positive values and accomplishments, a projection in the positive light - of our heroes past and present and the accomplishments and the potentials of our fatherland. It is time for a positive change. Nigeria , and indeed Nigerians deserve a positive image. We cannot continue to move around the world as a people with the millstone of negative publicity, image and bad reputation or disrepute hanging around our necks everytime.

Akintokunbo Adejumo, a social and political commentator on Nigerian issues, lives and works in London, UK . A graduate of the University of Ibadan , Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba , Canada (1985), he also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com , Nigeria Today Online, Nigerians in America , Nigeria Village Square

Robot  Villager

# 1 ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 13.09.2007 08:18

Abujaboy  Villager

# 2 I thought his comments on "retaliatory foreign relations" sounded petty, childish, belligerent, and ultimately ignorant of how the world works. It's NOT the job of other nations to trumpet Nigerian successes -- it's our GOVERNMENT'S job, and our PEOPLE'S job. If so many Nigerians have conducted themselves so badly all over the world, and the world notices, whose fault is that? Such a "head-in-the-sand" attitude is exactly what Nigeria doesn't need now -- we need to wake up and deal with our problems.:mad: Maduekwe shows that he is not up to the task of representing this great nation. Posted by Abujaboy| 14.09.2007 03:06

Babatoks  Villager

# 3 My thoughts exactly, but I did not want to overboard when I was writing the article. Let's wait and see. Posted by Babatoks| 14.09.2007 12:38

Babatoks  Villager

# 4 How I wish that our leaders have concsience?. They behave as if that they are more patriotic than most of us whereas they are ONLY interested in what they could steal out of our oil money. The Creator of the suffering masses shall surely jugde. They thought the people are fools but nemesis will eventually catch up with them. You can see it, their days are coming to an end gradually Posted by Babatoks| 14.09.2007 12:40

buchi  JJC

# 5 The truth is that citizenship diplomacy is a first of it's kind. A lot of nigerians living abroad have been worried about the negative propaganda that seems to have been launched against nigeria in recents times. As a Nigerian, I have constantly been subjected to prejudice as a result of the ignorance of majority in the west who I don't blame, since the only soure of information they have acess to, seem to be the ones on this mission to portray nigeria as a country of corruption and fraudsters. Our approach should be to welcome the development as a step in the right direction first and then see how each of us can contribute positively and contructively instead of wasting our time on futile critisism. I formed an organisation to tackle the problem of negative publicity soon after Oprah Winfrey hosted the "victims"of nigerian fradsters for 1 hour on her TV show. However, as soon as I heard of the Nigerian governments initiative on citizenship diplomacy, I decided to soft pedal and give them a chance as they have access to a lot more funds and network infrastrucure than I would ever have. Lets be positive. Posted by buchi| 20.09.2007 06:05

EbonyLomo  Villager

# 6 =Abujaboy;208494>I thought his comments on "retaliatory foreign relations" sounded petty, childish, belligerent, and ultimately ignorant of how the world works. It's NOT the job of other nations to trumpet Nigerian successes -- it's our GOVERNMENT'S job, and our PEOPLE'S job. If so many Nigerians have conducted themselves so badly all over the world, and the world notices, whose fault is that? Such a "head-in-the-sand" attitude is exactly what Nigeria doesn't need now -- we need to wake up and deal with our problems.:mad: Maduekwe shows that he is not up to the task of representing this great nation. On the contrary Abujaboy, it is also not the job of other nations to trumpet Nigerian failures overzealously either, yet they do it. I agree with this CITIZENSHIP DIPLOMACY as postulated by MAduekwe, the only problem i have with it is that we should adopt this new policy at home first. Let's round up all those who stole our mandates, match them individually to their various houses, their bank accounts and reclaim our stolen Money and all that has been bought with it. Let's forcibly recall all irregularly elected politicians from their various offices and deprive them the opportunity of serving us again. Obviously, this ain't gonna happen, so this is where the Citizenship diplomacy will fall flat on its face in the first instance. :rolleyes::rolleyes::mad::mad: Posted by EbonyLomo| 20.09.2007 07:24