To the keen and casual observer alike, the geopolitical grounds are rapidly shifting, and a seemingly new world order is taking shape. This change is all too apparent worldwide; in the last four years, the world has endured a ravaging pandemic, the return of large-scale traditional warfare in Europe, a failed insurrection in the United States, a civil war in Ethiopia and South Sudan, rising tensions in the South China Sea and the explosion of violence between Israel and Palestine.
Closer home, the ECOWAS region has seen a retreat of democracy and the transnational effects of terrorism across borders. It is becoming more difficult not to give into mild exaggeration and hysteria and concede that we have never experienced these dynamics, and the world may be forever changed.
Indeed, much of the discourse on global affairs often references the post-world, post-Cold War, post-9/11, and post-pandemic worlds, as if those events are unique and forever altered global affairs. Admittedly, while each of these events may reveal something new about the world, the fact remains that much of history repeats itself; we are just not good at applying the lessons.
It does not require too far a journey into history to observe how some of the events and patterns today are like others we have had to navigate in the past. In the early 1990s, the Berlin Wall collapsed and with it, Cold War competition between the US and the USSR. Shortly after that, within the same decade, the former Yugoslavia splintered, while the US withdrew from the Somali peace process after a botched mission, the Liberian and Sierra Leone Civil Wars broke out, and the Rwandan Genocide took place. With all these events happening in Europe, Africa quickly fell in geopolitical value to the West, as the need to grapple for influence on the continent declined and focus shifted elsewhere.
The decline in Western interest also presented opportunities; during this period, Nigeria asserted itself and offered leadership not just in the sub-region but to the continent. It mobilised troops and intervened in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean conflicts, successfully ending them. It provided moral and material leadership to the apartheid struggle in South Africa, moved for debt forgiveness, and began to lay the foundations for reimagining integration and governance in the African Union and NEPAD, respectively.
Africa finds itself in a familiar position again: wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East, the West has redirected its attention and resources, and conflicts and geopolitical tensions abound on the continent, which it will have to resolve itself. Again, the crisis and tensions offer an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, not just aspire to it. This time around, however, it would appear Nigeria is willing to cede the positions to others.
African-styled leadership on the continent has always been conciliatory and consensus-building; we must gather at the village square to chart a way forward, but even with that, a few villagers are always expected to have an opinion or use their voices the loudest. Nigeria is one of those villagers, and its voice has been missing. When BRICS expanded its membership, it conspicuously omitted Nigeria. Nigeria’s imprint was imperceptible when the AU was admitted to the G8 as an observer.
On Climate Change, Kenya has staked a claim as the vocal leader on the continent on the need to reform the African Union and global world order. Rwanda is at the forefront of those discussions. Ghana has reinvented itself as the spiritual home of Pan-Africanism and welcomes droves of African Americans every December. South Africa has assumed the moral and economic leadership on the continent and, with it, the de facto status of regional power on the continent. The recent ruling of the International Court of Justice on a case brought to it by South Africa against Israel is a not-so-subtle attestation.
Nigeria has traditionally burnished its leadership credentials in three areas: its economy, military, and Pan-African worldview. It could be argued that a fourth should be considered its democratic credentials; its typical areas of leadership have been challenged over the years, but the country still has a lot to offer. To be sure, Nigeria has shown leadership in the past, committing resources and personnel, often without any visible benefits, but leadership is not static; it must be renewed. Indeed, the current administration deserves credit for a new foreign policy pronouncement which was sorely lacking in the past. The new vision reimagines Nigeria’s foreign policy priorities as four pillars: Democracy, Development, Demography and Diaspora: 4D diplomacy.
The need to move beyond pronouncements to proactiveness is urgent; the recent announcement by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger on their immediate withdrawal from ECOWAS makes it even more so. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that their decision to leave was made collectively, as a bloc; they are not resisting multilateralism but are perhaps chafing at the approach, which presents a path for Nigeria.
Nigeria remains too big to be forgotten, but for a country of its size and ambition, there is something just as egregious: to be ignored, sidelined or worse still, openly derided. Nigeria is dangerously close to that.
Babatunde Oyateru is a communication and development professional and is currently completing a doctorate in International Relations. His research interests include leadership and hegemony in Africa’s International Relations.
