By Usman Sarki
In my humble, and perhaps layman’s, view, concretising foreign policy has several dimensions. Even a deliberate decision to look inward and concentrate on strengthening domestic governance structures, institutions and national capacities can itself constitute an innovative foreign policy posture, particularly where the objective is to prepare the country to engage more effectively with its immediate region and the wider international community.
Concentrating on the economy, internal security, human capital development, institutional effectiveness and national resilience can therefore be understood as integral to a country’s foreign policy disposition, insofar as such efforts strengthen national capacity, enhance strategic autonomy and enable the country to withstand external pressures while engaging other nations with greater confidence, dignity and credibility.
Whether the present administration has in fact succeeded in strengthening these domestic foundations is an entirely separate question, open to legitimate debate and contestation. That is not the purpose of this intervention. My concern here is with the underlying proposition that domestic capacity and effective foreign policy are inseparable.
With regard to the repeated references to Nigeria’s “lost glory” in foreign policy, it is my humble opinion that such formulations can sometimes inadvertently lead us to confuse nostalgia with strategy, and retrenchment with decline.
I respectfully suggest that our intellectual and foreign policy communities need to take fuller account of the profound transformations that have occurred both in the international system and in Nigeria’s own domestic circumstances over the years.
By way of humble illustration, the United Nations that I had the privilege of observing at close quarters between 2002 and 2011 in Geneva, and between 2012 and 2016 in New York, is not quite the same organisation that we see today, particularly in terms of its capacity, assertiveness and effectiveness in upholding international law, preserving the global order and contributing to the maintenance of international peace and security.
Much of this, of course, reflects the deepening divisions among member states, particularly the major powers, as well as the weakening of solidarity and collective purpose among the wider membership, rather than any deficiency of the Organisation itself.
Even Africa’s, and indeed the broader Global South’s, presence and activities within the United Nations are no longer as effective or as visible as they appeared during earlier periods, partly because international priorities, alignments and perceptions have changed considerably.
The African Union itself is today markedly different from the Organisation of African Unity that preceded it, and even from the AU of its formative years in the early 2000s. Its ambitions, capacities, constraints and political environment have all evolved, while contemporary geopolitical divisions and institutional limitations increasingly test its ability to articulate and advance common African interests effectively.
When Nigeria pursued what was once described as an “activist foreign policy” in the 1970s, 1980s and beyond, it did so within a particular historical environment whose defining conditions were not of our own making.
We did not create apartheid, which we vigorously opposed and whose eradication became a major cornerstone of our foreign policy, an achievement of historic proportion of which we remain rightly proud.
We did not initiate the national liberation struggles in Southern Africa and elsewhere that we subsequently supported so strongly through our bilateral relations and multilateral diplomatic engagements.
Rather, Nigeria responded to the opportunities, responsibilities and moral imperatives presented by the international environment of that era.
Similarly, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organisation of African Unity, the United Nations, the Group of 77 and China, and other international platforms of the period operated within a markedly different global order. They were animated by principles, political struggles and historical circumstances that gave them particular relevance and enabled countries such as Nigeria to exercise considerable influence through them.
Decolonisation in the 1960s and 1970s also had direct linkages to earlier historical developments such as the Bandung Conference and its aftermath in the 1950s, and to the emergence of countries such as China and India as important moral, political and intellectual forces in the developing post-colonial world.
The Cold War, although essentially bipolar in structure, also created important diplomatic spaces in which non-aligned and developing countries could exercise manoeuvrability, bargain collectively and sometimes derive strategic advantages from competition between the major powers. Nigeria and other countries of the Global South were therefore able, at various moments, to leverage such opportunities and pursue assertive and activist foreign policies within an international environment that provided the conditions for such engagement.
Moreover, the notion of the “Global South”, in terms of solidarity, effective coordination and the sharing of common ideals, interests and perspectives, is dramatically different today from what it was during the period that we often look back upon as the “golden years” of Nigerian diplomacy. Today, many of those conditions have changed almost beyond recognition.
The contemporary international system is increasingly shaped by unilateralism, economic competition, technological power, military and security imperatives, strategic rivalries, shifting alliances, weakened multilateral institutions, the growing influence of non-state actors both conventional and destructive, and persistent failures of global governance.
Ideology, solidarity and even long-established principles concerning human rights, human dignity and international law increasingly compete with hard calculations of national interest, economic advantage and strategic necessity in determining relations among states. Access to critical minerals, strategic raw materials, energy sources, technology and supply chains, for example, has acquired enormous importance in contemporary international relations and can sometimes outweigh or subordinate normative considerations in the calculations of states.
This does not necessarily mean that principles have disappeared from international relations. It means rather that their relative weight has diminished in comparison with the increasingly powerful imperatives of security, economics, technology and strategic competition. They have been subordinated so to speak, to the weightier arguments of the national interest and existential priorities rightly or wrongly depending on where one stands.
The world in which Nigeria must conduct its foreign policy today is therefore fundamentally different from the one in which many of our most celebrated diplomatic achievements were recorded. The personalities that led Nigeria during the “Golden years” are also different in substance and mindset than those leading our country today.
For these reasons, looking inward and rearranging national priorities should not automatically be interpreted as retreat, diminished ambition or loss of voice. It can equally be understood as strategic regrouping towards rebuilding the economic, institutional, security and human foundations upon which a more credible, autonomous and effective foreign policy can be constructed.
Indeed, foreign policy ultimately rests upon national power and national capacity. A country’s diplomatic influence cannot indefinitely exceed the strength of the economy, institutions, security architecture, technological competence, social cohesion and human capital upon which that influence must ultimately depend.
This is why strengthening the domestic foundations of national power should not be regarded as something separate from foreign policy. On the contrary, it is one of the indispensable conditions for sustaining an effective foreign policy.
A stronger economy gives diplomacy greater leverage. Effective institutions enhance credibility. Internal security enlarges strategic freedom. Human capital and technological competence increase competitiveness. Social cohesion strengthens national resolve. All these, taken together, determine the extent to which a country can pursue its interests abroad without becoming excessively vulnerable to external pressures.
This, in my humble view, is what strategic autonomy ultimately represents namely the possession of sufficient national capacity to make consequential choices without being subjected to disproportionate external constraint.
Nigeria therefore does not necessarily need to recover yesterday’s foreign policy. It needs to construct a foreign policy adequate to tomorrow’s world and her needs.
This does not mean abandoning activism, leadership or ambition. It means redefining them in the light of available wherewithal and contemporary realities, while ensuring that our external aspirations are increasingly matched by our internal capacities, resources and cohesion.
I will nevertheless concede that Nigeria’s foreign policy has, at various points, receded somewhat in visibility and operational reach, especially with regard to the country’s historic role in continental peace and security.
This became increasingly apparent from around the early 2010s, when domestic security challenges began to absorb greater national attention, resources and military capacity. Nigeria gradually reduced or reassessed aspects of its involvement in external peace operations at a time when the Boko Haram insurgency was becoming a grave internal threat.
Our experience in Darfur, Sudan, and the broader decline in Nigeria’s ability or willingness to sustain the level of external military commitment for which it had once been known, should therefore be viewed partly against the background of growing domestic security pressures. Similarly, Nigeria’s limited military role in the stabilisation of Mali, especially when compared with the more visible deployment of countries such as Chad, reflected not necessarily a loss of strategic interest in West Africa, but the realities of competing national security priorities.
By that period, Boko Haram had rapidly expanded its operations, captured or contested territory, displaced large numbers of people and severely challenged the presence and authority of the Nigerian state in several parts of Borno State and the wider Northeast.
Under such conditions, some reassessment of Nigeria’s external commitments was perhaps inevitable. A state confronting a serious insurgency at home would naturally have to reconsider the extent to which it could continue deploying scarce military, financial and political resources abroad.
Seen from this perspective, the apparent decline in Nigeria’s external activism cannot be explained simply as a failure of imagination or diplomatic ambition. It must also be located within the broader context of changing national capacity, internal security demands and the transformation of the regional and international environments.
I sincerely hope that this modest contribution will, even in some small way, encourage a broader reappraisal of how we assess Nigeria’s foreign policy; not simply through the perspectives of loss and gain, retreat and advance, or glory and decline, but through the more practical lenses of national capacity, constraints, opportunities, changing regional and international dynamics and the requirements of the future.
* Ambassador Usman Sarki is a former Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, New York