Speaking Truth to Power: Aspects of the Evolution of Nigeria ’s Foreign Policy and an Unsung Scholar.

-Olu Ojedokun, Ph.D.-

The challenge of attempting to unpack the evolution of Nigeria ’s foreign policy lays more at door steps of one intellectual who at his first flush of promise was cut short without the opportunity to fulfil his immense potential.  The month of May marks thirty-six years that the then acting Director General of the Nigerian Institute met his untimely death and returned to his maker.  It is from this intellectual; called Olasupo Aremu Ojedokun that most of the ideas contained in this article emanate, and this article seeks the celebration of an unsung scholar.

I also write against the background of a seeming lacuna that has arisen in Nigeria’s foreign policy since the hey days of Major General Joseph Garba and Prof Bolaji Akinyemi and hope this article would inspire those at the helm to pursue a more informed and activist foreign policy.   For I hope that I would speak truth to power and reveal in some measured way that:

‘The study of international relations is not an innocent profession’[1]

Exposing that it is not like the classics, or mathematics or an abstract logical training for the youthful mind and demonstrating that:

‘The forever explosive relationship between social science and public policy’ that has been embedded in the discipline of International Relations from the outset.[2]

I start from Nigeria ’s “national interest” seen by the successive governments as important in determining the direction of its foreign polices.  “National Interest” is not a definitive or absolute yardstick of policy.  In many instances it fails to offer a definitive and comprehensive explanation of the motives of nations.  Furthermore no matter how plausible the “national interest” may seem, most political decisions are, in fact, not borne of a formal and rational costing of material loss and gains of certain courses of action contemplated by decision makers.  I intend in this next paragraph to expose some of the thoughts of the late Dr Olasupo Ojedokun and how he accounts for some of the evolution of Nigeria ’s foreign policy.

In the first flush of independence the leaders of the African and Asian states laboured under the illusion that their new status as independence states offered them an uninhibited freedom of choice in foreign policy – a sort of tabula rasa on which the colonial past had little relevance.  A week after Nigeria ’s independence, Sir Abubakar, its first Prime Minister addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations stating:

“One great advantage which we new nations have is that the accession to independence makes a clear cut with our past…[3]

On the contrary, Sir Abubakar was to discover, as other African and Asian political leaders before and after him found, that even when independence had been formally attained, the colonial period continued to cast a long shadow behind it which considerably influenced the pattern and character of the new states’ international relations[4].  Thus Nigeria ’s foreign policy during the first six months of independence showed that the international environment within which policy choices were made was heavily coloured by the colonial past.  Attitudes and contacts developed during the ten decades or so of British domination in Nigeria subsisted long after the Union Jack was hurled down at mid night on 30^th September, 1960.  Nigeria ’s relations with the UK and the Commonwealth were part of her response to that post-colonial environment.  The Nigerian political elite who inherited power on the departure of the British was itself a product of the colonial era.  The strong economic, political and social ties established between Nigeria and the UK in the colonial period did not suddenly disappear when independence was gained[5].   In Nigeria ’s case, the relationship with Britain remained, in real terms, the most significant fact of Nigerian foreign policy in the beginning.

Another factor of influence in the origins of Nigerian foreign policy was the colonial era which generated certain attitudes which subsisted after independence.  Deep feelings over colonialism and racial discrimination developed during the struggle for independence and continued to play a significant role in the ideology of the new states including Nigeria .  As it happened, nationalism, anti colonialism and anti-racial discrimination all found expression in the Pan-African movement which in varying ways affected the thinking nationalists throughout Africa .  And all though Nigeria ’s relations with Africa, compared with her relations with Britain remained up to 1966 insubstantial, the ideological solidarity with fellow OAU members formed part of the environment in which Nigeria ’s foreign policy was formulated.

The very act of independence conferred freedom to diversify contacts beyond the traditional Nigeria – UK circle.  In doing this, for example Nigeria ’s commercial contact with the EEC, the intensity of the relationship with Britain and the Commonwealth tended to be reduced.  Nearer home, Nigeria ’s immediate neighbours were francophone states.  A policy of functional cooperation with her led to the establishment of closer contacts with non-Commonwealth, French speaking states.  Whereas in East Africa, geography encouraged the continuation of the cooperation built up among the African Commonwealth countries in the colonial period, Nigeria’s lack of geographical contiguity with her fellow Commonwealth neighbours in West Africa led, among other factors, to increasing diminution of cooperation with them.  It was this background, which determined the structure and depth of Nigeria ’s relations with the UK in particular and the Commonwealth in general.

The collective interaction of the situational factors in the Nigerian foreign policy environment, in 1960, created a position in which close relations with the UK as well as active membership of the Commonwealth presented itself as a realistic policy objective.  The ruling elite was pre-British and regarded association with Britain and the Commonwealth as a good thing.  The friendly atmosphere in which independence was won left a heritage of friendship and mutual trust between UK and Nigeria .  The social aspect of the environment, the legal, administrative and educational links with the UK and the Commonwealth.  Other factors in the Nigerian foreign policy environment – nationalism, anti-colonialism, anti-racial discrimination the geographical fortune of being an African country as well as the economic fact of underdevelopment suggested the type of preoccupations with which Nigeria would be concerned as a member of the Commonwealth.  These factors influenced Nigeria ’s image of the Commonwealth and conception of her relations with the UK .  In the next part of this article I hope to present Dr Olasupo Ojedokun’s insight on ‘ Britain and the Commonwealth in Nigeria ’s Foreign Policy Environment.”

The writer is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria .

Robot  Villager

# 1 Speaking Truth to Power: Aspects of the Evolution of ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 05.05.2008 00:13

The Pledge  Villager

# 2 Speaking seriously of evolution of Nigerian Foreign Policy and the present day impact emanating from these factors while elucidated in your piece, one begin to wonder how advantageously we have evolved. The precolonial inhibitions and the predominant pattern scaling every aspect of our foreign policies with the visible characteristics and tenacity with which we hold on to our colonial dictates personified in the World bank and IMF spell out how INDEED free we are NOW from the colonial period. Speaking the Truth to Power; THE EMANCIPATION OF A PEOPLE THAT ARE INDEPENDENT AND THE BENEFIT THEREOF LIES ON THE LEADERSHIP OF THE PEOPLE, NIGERIA NEED LEADERS WITH A CLEAR VISION OF WHERE HER PEOPLE NEED TO BE IN THE WORLD TODAY. GOD HAS GIVEN THIS COUNTRY ALL SHE NEED TO BE GREAT, THE PROBLEM IS THAT OUR LEADERS HAVE REFUSED TO EVOLVE WITH TIME FOR SELFISH REASON, HENCE THEY STILL LOOT AND FURTHER ENRICH OUR COLONIAL MASTERS ECONOMY WITH BILLIONS OF POUNDS STASH AWAY IN VARIOUS BANKS IN THE UK AND US.THEREFORE, THIS GENERATION MUST NOT FAIL TO RIGHT THE WRONG OF THE PAST. WE MUST STAND FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO SINCERELY EMANCIPATE OURSELVES AND GENERATION YET UNBORN IN ALL RAMIFICATION. LETS NOT RELENT. ALUTA CONTUNUA! Posted by The Pledge| 05.05.2008 05:10