CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

The main focus of actors of foreign policy formulation process is to articulate in vivid terms the national interest of a country which serves as a guide in their relations with other nations of the world. The efficient administration of foreign policy objectives is based on credible and widely accepted principles that helps shape a country’s image among the comity of nations.

After independence in 1960, Nigeria began her external relations as a sovereign state with its emergence as the 99th member of the United Nations, thus we shall analyze some of the forces that influenced Nigeria’s foreign policy over the years, and how they have manifested in the country’s contemporary foreign relations, and how they constitute variables in understanding today’s challenges and planning for the future. To a large extent, these numerous factors have helped shape and continue to shape Nigeria’s foreign policy in various ways. While there is the technical tendency to view Nigeria’s foreign policy as starting from 1960 when the country gained its political independence from Britain, Nigeria, on the contrary, did not start on a clean slate. Rather it brought with it a century-old colonial relationship with her erstwhile colonial master: Britain and this largely influenced her foreign policy ever since. The enduring impact of British influence on Nigeria’s foreign policy and its ruling elite continued to have extensive effects on Nigeria’s pro-west stand, in spite of her non-aligned claims until the late 1960s when the lessons of the Nigerian civil war of 1967- 1970 forced Nigeria’s foreign policy elites to reevaluate their stand towards external actors. The radical impact of the civil war on Nigeria’s foreign policy was quite significant, according to the International Peace Academy report of July 2003:

Nigeria’s leaders to drew some major lessons from the experience: first, that the country’s survival as a sovereign state could not be taken for granted; second, that, based on France sending arms to secessionist Biafra through Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire, there was a compelling need to have friendly governments in neighboring countries – a reality which partly explains why Nigeria in the aftermath of the civil was spearheaded the creation of ECOWAS; third, that the existence of minority white owned regimes in Southern Africa, which backed Biafran secessionists during Nigeria’s civil war, was a threat to Nigeria’s security.1.

Hence, the tragedy of the civil war helped to unveil the diplomatic naivety of Nigeria’s foreign policy makers to the reality of the international system. Dr Asobie described this era as the “Age of Innocence”. Thus, the military regime of General Gowon made an attempt to reinvent our foreign policy to reflect the regional hegemonic inclinations of Nigeria, in external policies which brought about the co-creation of regional organization: ECOWAS. Yet, most of the principles that strengthened foreign relations at that time were largely selfless and more or less reactionary towards events in the international environment. In the same vein, they lacked genuine developmental momentum and were merely a continuation of what was obtainable in the first republic.

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