A Critical Evaluation of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy at 53

Abstract

Recent studies by Aluko, Macridis, Anyaele and Akinboye depicts Nigeria’s foreign policy as being chameleon in nature, a foreign policy constantly in a state of flux as a result of internal and external dynamics inherent in any given administration or regime. In the case of Nigeria, the formation of Nigeria’s foreign policy has gone through 14 different administrations through the external affairs ministry in the past 53 years, out of which 35 years were during military regimes. Consequently, there has been a plethora of conceptual, ideological and psychological postulations of policies in Nigeria’s foreign policy machinery, most of which were born out of a crave and selfish hunger for an identity that would leave a lasting impression about the various administrations or regimes in question While adopting the traditional critical methods of analysis in philosophy to analyze relevant data, archival materials, texts and the major conceptual and ideological constructs proposed as foundations which upholds the main trusts of Nigeria’s foreign policy, the paper shall strive to show via contextual and conceptual analysis of all the data collected for the study, the reason for  policy failure and abandonment in Nigeria’s foreign policy machinery.  Aside the existence of a weak institution of leadership, the study identifies the continued insistence on an Afrocentric foreign policy by past administrations as one of the major negative influence on Nigeria’s foreign policy trust. The ideological and psychological crave by each administration to formulate unique foreign policies ares also identified as inimical to the policy formulations initiatives since they are not grounded in deep philosophical thought. The study recommends a strong paradigm shift and a positive transformation plan which will have the capacity to reverse the degeneration that presently looms the diplomatic practice in the face.

Key Words: Diplomatic Practice, Foreign Policy, Ideological Constructs, Paradigm Shift, Psychological Postulations, Transformation Plan