Two Years of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy under PBAT: The Challenge of ECOWAS-AES Mésentente
Bola A. Akinterinwa
Foreign policy is variously defined in international relations. Some scholars see it as a continuum, in which case they argue that it is an extension of domestic policy. In this regard, several scholars argue that there is not much that can be meaningfully and externally achieved if the domestic base is not first of all made developmentally vibrant. They talk about strong economy, strong institutions, well-articulated focus, and peaceable environment. By implication, foreign policy focus must address the domestic challenges that have the potential to impede foreign policy endeavours in the international scene.
On the contrary another school of thought observes that, even if the domestic setting is not good enough, the international environment can still be taken advantage of to address whatever domestic problems there may be. Professor Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi, the ‘Baba’ of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy’ as he is now being referred to, is the champion of this school in Nigeria. It was on the basis of this reasoning that he came up with the idea of Concert of Medium Powers, the foundational principle of which is that intellectual and human resources can be justifiably used to attract international attention and make Nigeria to be relevant. In other words, the domestic environment should be made conducive and the international environment, be it good or bad, should be taken advantage for foreign policy calculations.
In the context of Nigeria’s foreign policy under PBAT (President Bola Ahmed Tinubu), what does foreign policy mean? Does the PBAT administration belong to the domestic school of thought that wants emphasis, first of all, placed on making the environment conducive? What is Nigeria’s policy attitude and what is the foreign policy behaviour?
Foreign Policy Attitude and Behaviour
Nigeria’s foreign policy under PBAT can be explained at the level of policy attitude and policy behaviour. Policy attitude generally deals with values, beliefs, feelings towards a thing or an issue, or towards an idea. For instance, what does the administration of PBAT think of the perception of Nigeria as a ‘big brother’ or as the giant of Africa? How does PBAT himself feel about his being the ECOWAS Chairman and under his chairmanship, three Member States of the regional organisation opted to withdraw their membership of the organisation? This is what an attitudinal disposition is all about. Essentially, attitude is about individual thinking or ideas, which can be positive or negative, friendly or hostile.
On the contrary, behaviour goes beyond an attitude to including actions, and reactions taken in response to attitudinal dispositions. It is about visible and measurable activities. Explained differently, an attitude is generally intrinsic or internal, it is not directly observable. It is a feeling. Behaviour is about observable actions. It is not a feeling but an action and reaction. It is not only observable, but also measurable. Consequently, in explaining and understanding Nigeria’s foreign policy under PBAT, there is the need to explicate it in terms of both the policy attitudes and behaviours. But in doing so, let us first of all understand what foreign policy means to PBAT.
In the eyes of Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, foreign policy ‘is the strategy or approach chosen by the National Government to achieve its goal in its relations with external entities. Or at least that’s how international relations theorist, Steve Smith, and his fellow travellers define it.’ In other words, Ambassador Tuggar subscribes to the Steve Smith school of thought. As good and tenable as this definition may be, there is no disputing the fact that the definition only accounts for foreign policy as a technique or a tactic. It does not adequately address the aspect of foreign policy as strategy. If we consider a tactic and a strategy as possible objectives, then the definition of Steve Smith can be tenable but foreign policy observers cannot but find it difficult to differentiate between tactical foreign policy and strategic foreign policy. But true enough, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister is much interested in tactical foreign policy by adopting the definition of Steve Smith. As we shall show hereinafter, the Foreign Minister is currently emphasising the pursuit of strategic foreign policy with his definition of, and quest for, strategic autonomy for Nigeria. More interestingly, Nigeria’s foreign policy under PBAT is largely predicated on a tripod of Hope, Doctrine of 4-Ds, and Quest for Strategic Autonomy. Hope and doctrine of 4-Ds fall under foreign policy attitudes as discussed above, while the quest for, and manifestations of, strategic autonomy fall under the categorisation of foreign policy behaviours.
At the level of ‘Hope’, Foreign Minister Tuggar delivered the 2023 Annual Lecture of the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria (ARCAN). In the lecture, entitled “The Nigerian Foreign Policy Agenda under the President Tinubu Administration,” Ambassador Tuggar made it clear that he was in agreement with Robert Dahl’s ‘explanation that a policy is an attempt to cope with the future, not simply to account for the past.’ More concernedly, he said ‘to be concerned with policy is to focus on the attempt to produce intended effects. Hence policy is and must be causality thinking. Suffice it to say that the President Tinubu Administration is committed to producing intended effects and is focused on causality thinking.’ Causality is essentially about understanding how some things influence some other things, how one event causes another event, and how to identify causal dynamics and dealing with the complex relationships between them.
Two points are noteworthy in the foregoing references: emphasis on the future and emphasis on causality thinking. Without necessarily disagreeing with the usefulness of the past, the Foreign Minister wants emphasis to be placed on the future: what should Nigeria’s foreign policy look like in the future? What and where should Nigeria be placed in international politics in the foreseeable future? Should Nigeria pursue a foreign policy of greater Nigeria? The Minister’s message is clear: ‘better days are coming’ to borrow the words of Jimmy Cliff in one of his records. He believes that better days are in the making and will soon come.
And perhaps more importantly about hope, the Foreign Minister discussed the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). He explained the three main objectives of the Agenda as follows: ‘to protect against all forms of external aggression, promote the best possible outcomes for Nigeria in all engagements with other nations, improve Nigeria’s standing and dignity among the comity of Nations.’ Thus, hope is about expectations. There is nothing wrong in expecting. The only disturbing concern about hoping is the determination of how long should the expectation be? Expectations that are not visible to have the potential to come at the time of need cannot but generate frustration.
As regards the doctrine of ‘4-Ds’, as we noted earlier, it has a behavioural character. The 4-Ds are, in order of presentation by the Foreign Minister, Democracy, Development, Demography, and Diaspora. As presented, democracy is the most important even if all the Ds are intertwined in terms of their implications. In the eyes and words of the Foreign Minister, democracy is simply a pathway to enhanced peace and stability, because ‘mature liberal democracies are less prone to conflict with each other and more likely to promote human rights… The threat to peace from terrorism and irredentism in the Sahel can only be countered with a solid foundational basis of constitutional governance, strong democratic institutions and alliance of democratic countries in the region.’ Ambassador Tuggar sees democracy as a qualification for joining some influential international groups like the G-20, which can also serve the purposes of Nigeria’s quest for Permanent Membership of the UN Security Council. In a nutshell, Ambassador Tuggar says ‘it is therefore incumbent on Nigeria as Africa’s largest democracy and serendipitous Chair of ECOWAS to pull its weight and ally with other democracies and constitutional governments to reverse this deadly trend’ in the AES countries.
As regards ‘Development’, it has the purpose of achieving a double-digit growth for Nigeria by combining agriculture, infrastructure, and industrialisation. Agriculture is to ensure food security. Infrastructure investment is to create jobs and enable between 10 and 12% growth rate. In fact the Foreign Minister put it bluntly: ‘no electricity, no development. For this, 4-Ds seeks to use diplomacy to improve Nigeria’s energy mix… Sitting on some 200 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, we have no alternative but to use our comparative advantage to industrialise as well as to export energy.’
On ‘Demography’, Ambassador Tuggar presents it as an asset and not as a liability. If Nigeria is believed to have a current population of about 220 million people and is expected to become third largest country in the world by 2050, there is not only the need to prepare for the D-Day, but also for Nigeria to work ‘with other demographically large nations to not only learn from them but also gain from each other.’
Finally on Nigerians in the ‘Diaspora’, they give impressions that define Nigeria’s external image. The Minister wants to promote them and expand the scope of the Technical Aid Corps scheme which he describes as ‘the unsung hero of Nigeria’s soft power diplomacy where Nigeria continues to support southern hemisphere countries with skilled workers.’ What is noteworthy here is that Ambassador Tuggars also said that ‘the kernel of the 4-Ds is strategic autonomy in an increasingly polarised global setting…’ What is the implication of this for ECOWAS, the AES, and particularly for the ECOWAS-AES relationship?
The Challenge of ECOWAS-AES Mésentente
In his statement given at the recent inaugural session of the Agora Policy Forum in Abuja, Ambassador Tuggar identified four strategic pillars of Nigeria’s foreign policy in reaction to the increasing uncertainties in global politics. As noted in the statement, the world is challenged by many conflicts: the war in Ukraine which has reshaped the energy markets; the Sudanese and Sahel conflicts, which have shown disregard for the old rules-based order and how ‘non-state actors flex influence in areas of chronic instability; the persistent inflation by which the global economy is currently characterised; debt crises that have become recidivist; the existential threat posed by climate change, etc.
In reaction to these global questions, Ambassador Tuggar says ‘Nigeria’s foreign policy must be dynamic. It must ensure that our national interests are protected while we remain a responsible and engaged member of the international community.’ Additionally, the current world of critical challenges, in the eyes of Ambassador Tuggar, does ‘not present a level playing field for Nigeria and Africa in terms of access to financing and markets and the tools to facilitate peace, prospects, and opportunity.’ This situation is not acceptable to Nigeria. Consequently, Nigeria is believed, as a regional power, to have responsibility ‘to be a voice for Africa, to play our part in helping create a modern and dynamic order that reflects our national and shared interests.’
Explained differently, the Foreign Minister has raised the problematic of strategic balance, how to reconcile the world of disorders with Nigeria’s interest in engaging in the conduct and management of global affairs. In further responding to the global challenges, Nigeria has predicated her foreign policy on four strategic pillars. First is strategic autonomy. As the Foreign Minister sees it, ‘as global power shifts toward multi-polarity, Nigeria must assert greater strategic autonomy in its international engagements.’ Second is economic diplomacy and sustainability development in order to attract foreign investments, enhance trade partnerships, and secure development financing. The third is security and regional stability. True, security challenges are enormous. Even though the Foreign Minister made it clear that ‘under the President Bola Tinubu administration, no single piracy incident has occurred in Nigeria’s territorial waters,’ it is indisputable that Nigeria is still witnessing terrorism and banditry which is more disturbing than piracy. We do agree with the Foreign Minister that ‘the world needs a militarily strong Nigeria to keep our region and the African continent safe.’ The fourth pillar is Nigeria’s voice and agency in the global arena. For example, Nigeria wants the democratic reform of the United Nations. In fact, Nigeria wants to be one of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, with or without the right of veto. As the Foreign Minister put it, ‘Nigeria must remain proactive, adaptive, and innovative in its foreign engagements as it navigates global uncertainty. Evidence-based policy making, a long-term vision, and a commitment to national and continental advancement must underpin our strategy.’ It is against this background that Nigeria’s bilateral relationship with the ECOWAS, with the AES, and how to address the ECOWAS-AES relationship, including its challenges, are interrogated hereunder.
The first challenge is the question of Nigeria-ECOWAS relationship. Nigeria was the initiator of the idea of the ECOWAS. The ECOWAS started with sixteen Member States during the preparative consultations. Membership was later reduced to 15 with the withdrawal of Mauritania in 2000. Again, in 2024, the ECOWAS witnessed the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, meaning that the ECOWAS only has twelve members as of now. Perhaps most disturbingly, at the landmark declaration commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the ECOWAS at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, only three countries attended the commemoration at the level of Presidents and Heads of Government.
The signing of an ECOWAS Declaration was meant to reaffirm the collective resolve of the incumbent remaining 12 ECOWAS leaders to sustain the founding ideals and aspirations of the founding fathers. Most ironically, however, most of the founding fathers were military leaders. The only surviving founding father is ‘Baba ECOWAS,’ General Yakubu Gowon and he attended the ceremony. PBAT was there for Nigeria. President Joseph Nyuma Boakai of Liberia was there. The President of Togo, Faure Gnassingbé Eyadéma, and the President of Guinea Bissau, Umaro Embaló were also there. Apart from Nigeria and Togo as main initiators, only Liberia and Guinea Bissau had their Presidents at the ceremony. This does not suggest any seriousness of purpose.
More concernedly is the role of Nigeria as a foundation layer and integration builder, on the one hand, and also a part-instrument of setbacks and disintegration, on the other. How does Nigeria want to relate with the AES individually as distinct from multilateral relationship through the ECOWAS? In other words, is Nigeria’s national interest in the ECOWAS the same as in any of the AES countries? Nigeria’s quest for strategic autonomy must address this issue in its foreign policy calculations.
Secondly, the foreign policy thinking about the future of ECOWAS-AES relationship is that sooner than later, the AES would return to the ECOWAS family. General Gowon and many leading scholars like Professor Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi are faithful believers in their return. We do not share this view, not because of the openly declared non-preparedness of the AES members to return but because of the nature of international politics of the crisis. For example, France and her other allies currently find it most difficult to call it quit in Africa. Their development needs still capitalise on resources from Africa. The people of Francophone West Africa have been conscience-provoked to the extent that they have accepted the exploitation of their God-given natural resources by themselves only. They have started de-emphasising anything French in various ramifications. French language is no more the lingua franca. Institutions bearing colonialist names are being changed. Efforts aimed at replacing the West African CFA franc are ongoing. Thus to what extent can Nigeria ask the AES not to decolonise themselves? In their eyes, Nigeria is a stooge. Can the AES hobnob with Nigeria or with the ECOWAS that are perceived to being used by France against them? Again, this a another major challenge that Nigeria’s quest for strategic autonomy must address in her foreign policy calculations
Thirdly, as we have noted several times, the likelihood of the return of the AES countries is quite possible on the basis of a sub-regional consideration as it is currently. For Nigeria to counter this AES offensive, it should not be on the basis of ECOWAS but through the establishment of another sub-region that should encompass Nigeria and all her immediate neighbours. It can be referred to as the Nigeria sub-Region. This means that it has to be carved out from the West and Central Africa regions. By implication, Niger Republic will have one leg in the AES and the other leg in the Nigeria sub-region. Niger, which has been the friendliest immediate neighbour of Nigeria since the time of Hamani Diori, cannot but be the natural interlocutor for Nigeria at the level of the AES countries. It is the challenge of how to evolve a Nigeria sub-Region that foreign policy calculations have to address.
Fourthly, there is the challenge of how to contain or deal with the Russo-American ideological rivalry and proxy war in West Africa, on the one hand, and Euro-Russian serendipitous rivalry and proxy war in West Africa, on the other hand. Nigeria is opposed to foreign military bases in Africa but many African countries are not opposed. Nigeria is preaching the gospel of non-acceptance of unconstitutional change of government while an increasing number of African people are complaining that liberal democracy is no longer useful. It is in this context of general complaints that two years of Nigeria’s foreign policy are not only being investigated but that the quest for strategic autonomy is also being raised and explicated.
And true enough behaviourally, two years of Nigeria’s foreign policy under PBAT underscored economic diplomacy aimed at attraction of foreign direct investments and promotion of trade and expansion of economic partnerships. PBAT’s foreign trips were more than 40 as they included unofficial and officious visits to more than 28 countries including the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, United States, United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia, India, Qatar, etc. The opposition elements say PBAT is more of a globetrotter than a leader but the visits which also fall under foreign policy behaviour, have reportedly yielded a commitment of foreign direct investments of not less than US $50.8bn as of March 2025 according to Mrs Jumoke Oduwole, Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Industry. However, attendance at the ECOWAS 50th Anniversary in Lagos was not encouraging. How do we explain why attendance at the presidential level was limited to only four countries out of 12? Another challenge is how to understand why it was the Francophone leaders that were represented with the exception of Togo, a co-founding nation with Nigeria. Representations at the Ambassadorial and Foreign Ministers levels was not befitting enough for an ECOWAS that is fraught with threats of regional insecurity and disintegration. The commemoration ought to have been designed to be a show of unprecedented solidarity. This was not the case, but it remains a pointer to problems yet untold.
