Continuity and Change in Nigeria’s Foreign Policy (1960-2016)

Abstract

One of the most important challenges of statehood for Nigeria since independence has been the quest for an enduring orientation, a deliberately constructed and sustainable design to fit the country properly into the international system. Political development in Nigeria has been characterized by the near absence of a general consensus on policy, which really reflects the deep socio-political cleavages that define relationship between units that make up the Nigerian Federation. The search therefore for an enduring foreign policy orientation around which all Nigerians would be prepared to rally has taken the country through several foreign policy
somersaults, in spite of occasional unanimity on issues such as racial equality and the decolonization process. Making use of library research and content analysis methodologies in a historical aqualitative analytical perspective, the paper highlighted these areas of common commitment, and detailed the nation’s historic efforts to advance the cause of the black race and the war against colonialism and racial discrimination in all its facets. The paper further analyzed the various changes in foreign policy, spanning several regimes, and culminating in an emerging trend towards a definite foreign policy orientation, that seems to re-define the
concentric circles idea. The paper argued that the idea of concentricism, as it is conceived now, is no longer adequate as a foreign policy doctrinaire capable of attaining the objectives of Nigeria’s foreign policy in the 21st century, and must therefore be re-conceptualized without delay. The paper concluded that the conceptualization and design, as well as the general guidance of foreign policy must be left in the hands of technocrats rather than bureaucrats and lay politicians.