The 2007 elections reverberated yesterday in Iju, Akure North, with Professor Jide Osuntokun blaming its conduct for the hollowness of Nigeria's foreign policy as currently enunciated.

Osuntokun, who delivered a paper entitled, "Nigeria's National Interest and Foreign Policy:

A Panoramic View," at the 12th session of the Iju Quarterly Forum on Public Affairs in Iju, Akure North, yesterday, added that the policy cannot achieve much for the nation and its citizens unless the domestic situation was first sorted out.

In a critique of the immediate past administration, Osuntokun, former Ambassador to Germany, added: "Since foreign policy cannot be completely divorced from domestic politics, whatever Obasanjo's succeses might have been abroad have been devalued by his failure to conduct credible elections to usher in his appointed and anointed successor Umaru Yar'Adua.

"This lack of legitimacy constitutes a burden which the much ballyhooed "citizen diplomacy" articulated by his foreign minister cannot lighten," he said.

In a discussion session at the end of the presentation, Professor Tunde Oyedeji of Lead City University, Ibadan, wondered whether the present style of democracy is right for Nigeria, especially, as the nation seems unable to develop as envisaged.

Mrs. Jumoke Adamolekun, co-convener, said Nigerians are not well-liked by nationals of other African nations and that we should embrace reciprocity in the management of our foreign policy, adding that it shouldn't be too much to ask something in return from nations on which we had spent much resources.

Mr. Olusegun Ogunkua, a retired federal permanent secretary, concurred with the speaker, saying, "doing well abroad means doing well at home first."