Diplomacy in the Era of Transformation – By Prof. Emmanuel O. Esiemokhai

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, Emmanuel Omoh Esiemokhai, NNP Columnists Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

By Prof. Emmanuel Omoh Esiemokhai, Abuja, Nigeria – August 16 – On October 1, 1960, Nigeria received her independence from Britain and became a sovereign, independent state. It later became the 99 th member of the United Nations Organisation, in accordance with the Declaration on the Right of Nations to Self-determination, up to independence. The Soviet Union, Cuba, East European states and states in Asia and Latin America strongly supported the UN Declaration. In 1960, seventeen African states became independent. The formation of the Organisation of African Unity and other regional bodies enhanced African diplomatic practice. Post- Colonial African diplomacy was tailored along the diplomatic systems of the former Colonial state. Being a new aspect of statecraft, diplomatic practice in Nigeria, was controlled by the British civil service remnants. For example, Peter Stallard manned both the Nigerian Defence and Foreign Ministries, with a few bright Nigerian graduates from the University of Ibadan, as diplomatic trainees.

Dr. C Ifeagwu, a Nigerian American trained political scientist, was prominent at the United Nations. The Dove Edwin group was learning the diplomatic ropes. The group was inoculated by the anti-Communist prejudice, which they imbibed from British diplomats and British Intelligence. Nigerian passports were stamped prohibiting many Nigerians from travelling to the then Soviet Union, Cuba, Bulgaria, North Korea, China CSSR, Yugoslavia, Poland, East Germany etc, etc, for ideological reasons.It remains a shame that those adroit manipulations of our foreign policy, robbed many Nigerians from studying in the Universities of East European states .Some of those universities, had existed for centuries and were well-established.

The diplomatic cocktail circuits, which provide Nigerian diplomatic neophytes the rare opportunity to interact with blue-eyed European diplomats, were the centers for indoctrination, manipulation and control.
Since the Foreign Ministry affairs are not under scrutiny, a lot of damage was done to the psyche of our foreign office diplomats As a result of their exposure to Western cultural traits, they acquired hard attitudes, which they inflict on their compatriots, who have need to visit their embassies abroad. In the history of Nigerian diplomatic practice, all sorts of postulations are on record. Africa is the centre-piece of Nigerian diplomacy, which led to our involvement in the liberation of South Africa, although the onus was on the South African freedom fighters, the Liberation of some other African states, the establishment of ECOWAS etc. Mr. Edwin Ogbu held forth at the UN, refusing to succumb to blackmail and intimidation.
Then entered the Era of “economic diplomacy”,” black bomb diplomacy”, “citizens diplomacy,” which could not be defined,” no-action diplomacy” and we are awaiting the transformation diplomacy.
On July 20, 2011, members of the new Executive Council, beaming with smiles of relief, having scaled through elections, the SSS screening and the Senate interviews have now become ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

They were told that government had approved “a new foreign policy dispensation, which ties it to Nigeria’s domestic agenda of attracting foreign investments to the country. Henceforth, all policy directions of the Federal Government must propel the economic development of the country” As of now, Nigeria’s domestic agenda has not been spelt out in full.
More importantly, the security situation must improve for investor confidence to rise. The movement of persons in the ECOWAS sub-region has dwindled. Gang actions at the border s are severe. Kidnappings and abductions are still rife. Unfortunately, our successful elections have not obliterated our bad image as 419-ers are still deceiving gullible people.. In short, we still have a lot of image- laundering to do.
In a country in which people let sleeping dogs lie, people swallow announcements and before long raise them to the level of evidential truth. As a result, after four years, we hear the same clichés all over again from a new herdsman. When shall we learn that cozy jobs must translate to assiduous performance? Party job allocations can always throw people into strange pits.
Who is going to transform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Has he a good experience in international trade, international economic law and diplomacy? Has he the exposure and clout to win over through oratory, members of foreign chambers of commerce and industry? Has he a working relationship with Nigerian Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture and the Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce and Industry? There is a big field out there in South East Asia.

He must act like a business marketing executive and not a minister, who shuffles files, takes phone calls endlessly. He should cut down on protocol, niceties and social festivities. When the bottle takes effect through rounds of diplomatic parties, merriment replaces hard work. For transformation to be effective, it must be total. I have written a two-serial article on the prospects of transformation in Nigeria.
Are we going to undertake a structural transformation of the Nigerian economy that favours the citizens less? Are we transforming the ethos of using the Nigerian state as a milk cow? How are we going to transform the behavior of diplomats, who use their missions as trading posts? Under the transformation dispensation, they must engage actively in foreign investment acquisition. According to Professor John Shijian Mo,” Foreign investment began to form a significant area of international commercial activity after the Second World War, when many countries, which gained independence at the end of the war, drastically needed foreign capital, technology and managerial skills to develop their own economies. As a result, for the quest of foreign investment, many local companies fell into the hands of foreign banks and foreign investors.”

Economic conflicts inevitably arose and in Nigeria, when the Government saw that foreigners were dominating the economy, it passed the Indigenization laws, which rescued the Nigerian economy from foreign manipulation and control. Ever since, the status quo ante has been the order as the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy has gone back into the hands of non-resident investors.
In the 1980’s foreign investment was at its highest, with the emergence of the Asian Tigers, China, Singapore and Malaysia. Their diplomats engaged in active investment pursuits.
In its 2011 World Investment Report, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that” FDI inflows reached USS1.3 trillion in 2000.” This represented a sharp increase from direct foreign investment of 50 billion in 1980.”

The picture has become bigger, but African participation is still meager because until the CAC was re-organised, foreign investors found it difficult to register their companies and carry on with their trade, as a result of all sorts of avoidable impediments. Foreign companies were either overtaxed or undertaxed according to the prevailing ethos of corporate governance in Nigeria and “their increase in glory”.
What will the Government do to weed out inconveniences in the nation’s political economy? We must take serious control of our economic policies. It is only then that investors will not come, only to take the next flight back. How are we deploying our natural, human and financial resources? What will be left after paying legislators and other officials, unconscionable wages? Is there now peace in oil producing areas? How many graduates are in need of jobs?

The problem there has been is this culture of pompous declarations which do not materialize only to be put on the next seven years agenda. This was what happened with the solemn promise in 1980, 2005, and 2010 that there would be earth-shaking transformation of the Nigerian polity. Abe I lie? So, from where do I draw the conviction that all will not end in political colloquy?
Those, who hate Nigeria, are those, who wallow in wishful thinking and play the ostrich game, hoping that the people will continue to just believe. Yes, I too, believe, but I need more movement towards social change and social justice, without which we are treading on shifting sands. Foreign investments, joint ventures, banking and insurance, licensing agreements and countertrade are crucial to our development.
How would the Government’s apparent inability to recover misapplied funds help or weaken the transformation agenda?

I honestly cannot believe the sums of money some public officers are alleged to have embezzled. Where were the Accountant-General and the Auditors-General? They are capable officers. What went wrong?
The point is that many embassies are located in Lagos and Abuja. They read our newspapers, listen to our news and they send these negative reports to their Ministries of Foreign Affairs, which deal with our diplomats. This is why our diplomats observe the cynicism, with which their robust speeches are received beyond borders. Ambiguities and contradictions are bound to thwart the good intentions of a sensitive and well-groomed diplomats when confronted with devastating contempt from their receiving states.

The situation at home is usually the logical basis for effective diplomatic representation. Having taught international law and diplomacy for over thirty years, some of my former students, who are now Foreign Office diplomats, tell me how humiliating it can be to represent a state that is associated with every vice and not a single virtue. This is why we must transform totally.
Minister Aganga estimates that it will cost 35 trillion dollars to transform Nigeria. The logical question is how much dividends are we going to get from the transformation of the country?
Minister Nnaji said that we shall need ten trillion to ensure that we can get electricity. As a patriot, I sent the figures to a computer expert in the US. He said that the permutations are on the high side.
We are always dealing with high quotations without cross-checking for a second opinion. We tend to be very gullible. Machiavelli spotted this trend in old Italian city-states and concluded that “People are so simple-minded and trusting that anyone, who wants to deceive can always find people to deceive.”

Nigeria’s ethical and political practice is in need of transformation. How far we can go is the subject for a long forth-coming debate at all levels of civil society.
Nigeria is still battling with a mixture of monarchical, theocratic, aristocratic and semblances of democratic power, blended together in one diverse Confederation of Nations states, whose citizens hardly know each other, except at the elite level of concupiscent political engineering. The frequent call for constitutional changes, amendments and reforms point to the fact the Nigerian nation, has grown into a Confederation, which would need a new structural engineering to empower the new political and constitutional reality.

I understand those, who are clamouring for governance prolongation but I have no assurances that time will not be destructive in its effects. The suggestion has not anchored its logic on matching syllogism, but depends on quite subjective habits of judgment. A “yes” position is fraught with entering into the good books of those, who wish to stretch their political ambitions longer.
Such a delicate decision cannot be left to a few loud pundits, but must go through a referendum, as it is the practice in Confederal unions. History will print on marble, the emergence of quixotic constitutional learnedness that has routinely failed to move the Federal Republic to gain acceleration in the right direction. Occasional nostalgic return to the old turf is surely good for waning self-esteem as it is an acknowledgement of past services rendered. It is often not asked what the quality was.

Diplomatic history has witnessed various types of diplomacy. The subject is very old and to be a real diplomatist, takes prolonged time and rigorous studies. A party credit for ministerial appointment into this complex field of diplomacy,raises ambassadorial posting to a height, which it does not deserve. This, in the past yielded laughable epithets like “citizens diplomacy” and other such formidable appellations.. How far did we go? The Igbo say,” Ihe amuru amu, ka ihe agworo agwo” Please ask your compatriot for a translation! As long as we peddle cheap human intelligence, we shall continue to move in circles applying old formulas that did not work and would not work. The Roman, Byzantine, Soviet, Anglo-American diplomacy, did set goals, which their well-trained diplomats executed admirably. Fortified by strong governments with powerful armies, their ambassadors exuded authority and influence.

A government, whose top officials beg, appeal for financial and other assistance, each time they meet foreign envoys does not possess an illusion of strength. As the Chief Emeka Ayoku Commission takes on this tranformatory diplomatic work, we shall stand to learn from one of the pioneers of Nigerian diplomacy.

Professor Dr. Emmanuel Omoh Esiemokhai, a Writer and Academic is the Academic Chancellor, BOSAS INTERNATIONAL LAW BUREAU, Abuja, Nigeriawp_posts

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