Adekunle Adekoya
9 November 2008
interview
He may not need any introduction, but for the benefit of those who may not know him, Professor Jide Osuntokun is the dean of humanities at the Redeemers University (RUN), along, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Hitherto, Osuntokun, a recipient of a national honour (OON) is best known as an expert in international relations, and has taught that subject as well as history in several Nigerian universities. Indeed, he was ambassador of Nigeria to Germany from 1991 to 1995, and he also keeps a column in The Nation newspaper.
Thursday, October 31, he was the guest speaker at the 12th session of the Iju Quarterly Forum on Public Affairs, convened by another egghead, Professor Ladipo Adamolekun. Osuntokun delivered a paper entitled "Nigeria's National Interest and Foreign Policy: A Panoramic View." Chairman of occasion was another former ambassador of Nigeria to Germany as well as former education minister, Professor Tunde Adeniran.
In the course of the paper, Osuntokun made clear the connection between a vibrant foreign policy and sound domestic situation vis-a-vis the performance of the Obasanjo administration. His words: "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.
"This policy has raised unmet hopes in ordinary, bedraggled Nigerian economic migrants and the policy has been exposed as full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Nigeria will only be respected abroad when it gets its acts together at home, especially through rapid economic development. Nigeria must first of all confront her domestic problems, consolidate democracy. While democracy is not just the holding of periodic elections, important as this is, it means developing a democratic culture underpinned by the rule of law."
Further to sorting out the domestic situation, he stated: "We must face the question of the economy squarely. We still operate a dependent economy based on export of raw materials and industries of import substitution forty-eight years after independence. We must reverse this process by building industries, particularly agro-based industries in which we have comparative advantage. Our country can certainly support huge textile and garments industries based on local production of cotton." On the sidelines of proceedings at Iju Forum, Osuntokun spoke more on the nation's foreign policy in an interview.
You are an academic, but you've been involved in foreign policy execution as an ambassador. How would you situate Nigeria's foreign policy at this point in time?
Well, the declared foreign policy as of today is what they call citizen diplomacy. Citizen diplomacy, I must confess, doesn't make sense to me because we don't see beyond what is the obvious. Missions and embassies, wherever they are located, are supposed to protect the interest of the sending country; so when you talk about your foreign policy to protect the right of your citizens, I think I see the obvious. Now, for the past few years, economic diplomacy was supposed be the foreign policy of Nigeria and, I can tell you, I am part of those who formulated that policy.
It was formulated during the time of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and when Gen. Ike Nwachukwu was foreign minister and I was special adviser to the minister. We both introduced the policy of economic diplomacy and I was quite happy that the Obasanjo regime also adopted that policy of economic diplomacy. Basically, what the policy means is to use foreign policy to serve the course of economic development at home because there is no disconnect between foreign and domestic policy. If a country is strong at home, it will be respected abroad.
If it is weak at home, nobody will pay attention to what that country is doing abroad. So the current policy of citizen diplomacy..... and I think that the things I see are too weak to make any sense to people like us. I think a much more obvious foreign policy of economy diplomacy would have been much better. There's nothing wrong in continuity, you don't have to change all the time.
One would think that by operating citizens diplomacy, the foreign policy will be more cohesive towards the protection of Nigeria's interests, especially that of the citizen's abroad and those in the diaspora but the reverse seems to be the case if you consider the treatment meted to our people in South Africa during the xenophobic attacks, and recently, Nigerians shops were shut in Ghana when a 1994 law was selectively invoked and targeted at Nigerians. Do you think government is really clear about citizen diplomacy?
Well, it's just under all the points I was making; if we have a strong economy at home there'll be no need for our people migrating to all parts of the world in search of greener pastures. If we are strong at home, strong domestically, strong in terms of defence, our leadership will be obvious. A country like Germany or Japan does not have to protect its citizens by shouting about it because everybody knows that even an unarmed Japan, Germany are strong countries even in terms of global ranking.
The Germany economy and Japanese economy are first and second respectively. So the point I am making is, it is the strength at home that determines respect abroad. If your people are noted for roaming all over the world - you know we are in South Africa doing all kinds of odd jobs to make a living; we are in Ghana into retail business - if we have a good economy at home, there's enough work for us to do at home.
You wouldn't find Americans doing the kind of things we are doing all over the world; so I don't want to say it's dishonest to give Nigerians the impression that you can protect their interest all over the world because citizen diplomacy means that you can protect Nigerians wherever they are.
We don't have the power; what we can do is to strengthen ourselves at home to make it unprofitable for Nigerians to migrate abroad. We have the biggest market in Africa, why should we be going abroad doing little things and people look down at us?
If we're okay at home, we'll be respected abroad, that is the key to it. If I have the opportunity to serve in any capacity in this country, what I will be acting upon is that we must be strong at home. If we are strong at home, people will beg us; they will want to be related to us, they will invite us to come and teach them how we did it; but if we are weak at home, no amount of shouting or grammar at the UN will attract anybody.
Look at what has happened. For example, in recent times, there's a meltdown in the markets everywhere including our own country, Nigeria, but nobody mentioned us. All they are talking about is markets in Asia, Europe and America. This gives you the idea that we are not being taken seriously and the only way to be taken seriously is to be strong at home; not by declaring some pious citizen diplomacy or something like that and that was the whole essence of economic diplomacy.
We must put our foreign policy to back our domestic policy. We must make sure that wherever we go all over the world, it is either to seek for trade avenue or technical cooperation or investment in order to build this economy at home. Nigeria should not be poor, we have the resources, land, the people, you know, it's just that we need to mobilise ourselves for the purpose of economic development at home.
You've mentioned the economic diplomacy of Obasanjo. Now Yar' Adua's been there for about 18 months. What have you been able to discern as an academic between the foreign policy drive of Obasanjo and that of Yar' Adua?
Even a blind man knows that the (Obasanjo) foreign policy was very dynamic, was very active, very aggressive. Don't forget that it was during his time that we had the debt relief, don't forget this was also the time we were able to put our feet down in countries like Togo; because what happened in Togo was more or less a military coup.
Also, that kind of intervention took place in other countries like Cote d'Ivoire, Somalia, Sao Tome & Principe, and others. We made such an impression to the point that we were now regularly invited to attend as an observer the G-8 summits. Now, there is definitely a slow down in activity. I keep talking about domestic policy, you know, if there's no slow down at home, there's a reflection of it abroad. In order to build a vibrant foreign policy, we must anchor it on a strong domestic policy.
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