Many have congratulated President Goodluck Jonathan, some have labeled him a hero for conceding defeating, thereby averting what would have been a major crisis in the country. In some other African countries like Burundi, the people are yet to recover from protests that turned bloody following the president’s decision to contest for a third term.
According to Naij.com contributor, Adedayo Ademuwagun, with the president-elect, Muhammadu taking over power on May 29, it is time for Nigeria to start leading the African continent again.
– Nigeria has been sitting in the backseat in Africa for some time.
– Nigeria used to mobilise funds and personnel to support fellow African countries whenever they are in some crisis.
– Buhari’s government needs to step up on its foreign policy for many reasons.
– Buhari can likely make a strong enough impact in Africa.
A conflict erupted in Burundi this month after the president decided to contest for a third term. Soldiers staged a coup and protests turned bloody. Many Burundians also ran away for fear the violence would escalate.
In spite of these, the president Nkurunziza went out this week to play football with his friends.
It’s not the president alone who has been lax about fixing the crisis in his country. Nigeria and the other strong members of the African Union should have stepped in to stop the conflict, but Nigeria has been sitting in the backseat in Africa for some time now.
Two years ago when rebels overwhelmed the Mali army and tried to seize the whole country, Nigeria and the others in ECOWAS and AU were very languid in responding to the emergency. In the end, the Malian government cried out to the French and it was the French who intervened to flush out the rebels.
Conflicts flared up in CAR and South Sudan last year too and there was large scale bloodshed and suffering. 40 years ago, Nigeria could have donated generously and had its men over there in Juba and Bangui to help stop the bloodshed and restore order. But Nigeria barely moved an inch to resolve those crises and the countries had to rely heavily on Western aid.
Thousands also died in West Africa last year from Ebola because the countries didn’t have the means to fight the outbreak effectively. The epidemic ravaged Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone for months and these countries struggled as their people died. Even the Liberian president Sirleaf-Johnson cried out to President Obama for the United States to step up military and medial support to Liberia.
Liberia is just a few thousand kilometres from Nigeria, and yet the Liberian president had to write to Washington for help. Why didn’t she write to Abuja given that we faced the same problem and cleared it within a short time? Why didn’t Nigeria stand up to lead medical support in Monrovia instead of simply contributing a few million dollars and a handful of personnel?
Nigeria used to do a lot better than this. We used to get in the front and mobilise funds and personnel to support fellow African countries whenever they’re in some crisis like the United States does on a global level. We had a strong presence in Africa.
We supported liberation in South Africa, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. We spearheaded peacekeeping in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We didn’t use to just sit in the backseat like everyone else. We used to drive the leadership. But today we’ve lost nearly all of that quality.
Jonathan’s foreign policy shortcomings could be excused given that he had a lot on his table the whole time he was in charge.
Nigeria was a new state and the economy was doing really well in those days when we were a lot more interventional. There was an oil boom in the 70s for instance and the economy was galloping like never before. When the government announced a staggering N2.6bn budget in 1974, a Daily Times headline screamed, ‘BIGGEST BUDGET EVER’.
But Nigeria is not really in boom mode anymore. So perhaps it didn’t make sense to the Jonathan government to commit a load of money to foreign aid when many Nigerians back home do not have enough money or food and some government workers are going without pay.
We’ve also been battling with the Boko Haram the entire time Jonathan was president and it’s been a massive crisis over here. So the military has been a lot busy and doesn’t appear to have the resources to spare on external intervention. There has been just so much for the government to deal with back home, and it’s quite reasonable to extenuate the president’s weak foreign policy under these circumstances.
Now the Jonathan government is wrapping up and soon Buhari will be president. It’s going to be a new era for Nigeria in many ways. Nigerians hope the new government will make life better in the country and fix the internal problems that have been pulling us back for a long time. That’s why they voted for Buhari, and really that’s pretty much what they’ll be judging his government by.
It’s not chiefly by how many billions of nairas he spends on aid or how much he intervenes in a crisis happening somewhere in Africa. Naturally people are more concerned about if they have electricity than if people are dying somewhere in another country.
However, the government needs to step up on its foreign policy for many reasons. When you do good, people respect you and then you can use this to your advantage in international relations.
We’re the biggest economy in Africa and by far the most populous. We’ve got to get out of the backseat and take back our leadership role in Africa.
Africa clearly lacks a strong leader at the moment, who brings the others together and leads the way forward on the continent. So now that we’re having a new government, this is the time for us to step up to the front and seize the initiative. This is the time for us to deal with our domestic problems in a way that sets a good example for other African countries and demonstrates that we really are the giant of Africa.
Perhaps, Buhari can make a strong enough impact in Africa such that we’ll get that permanent seat on the UN security council. That’s really going to be a big step forward for us as a developing nation.
We have the potential to be the greatest nation in the world forever. But that’s never going to happen if we don’t get out of the backseat.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely that of the author. It does not necessarily represent those of Naij.com, its editors or other contributors.
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