Deepening Russo-Ukrainian War and Nigeria’s Bad Diplomacy: Seeking Peace by War Alignment

INTERNATIoNAL

Bola A. Akinterinwa 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, contrary to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 68/62 of 27 March 2014 on Territorial Integrity of Ukraine, not only raises questions on Russian fears about the possible use of Ukraine to threaten the national security of Russia, but also on why Russia has opted to defend its own national security to the detriment of whatever is the position of international law. The UNGA Resolution affirmed ‘its commitment to the sovereignty, political independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.’ Based on this affirmation, the Resolution called upon ‘States, international organisations and specialized agencies not to recognise any alteration of the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on the basis of the above-mentioned referendum and to refrain from any action or dealing that might be interpreted as recognizing any such altered status.’

Apart from this resolution, which invalidates the referendum of 16 March 2014 held in Crimea because it was not authorized by the legitimate government of Ukraine, there is also the UNGA resolution 2625 (XXV) of October 1970 which established some principles of International Law on Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States and provides that ‘the territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force, and that any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a State or country or at its political independence is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter.’

These resolutions meant very little or nothing to Russia which underscores her national security. Russian strategic focus is to prevent the establishment of any NATO military base in any of the former Soviet States, particularly Ukraine. And foreign policy wise, Russia wants a Russo-American joint strategy in managing global insecurity while the United States is wrapped up in the glory of its superiority, it does not want joint leadership, and is vehemently opposed to anyone having the capacity to challenge its global leadership.

This conflict in foreign policy positions of the two countries explains why the United States has been consciously expanding the membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) contrary to bilateral agreements reached with Russia and why Russia has also reactively been opposed to such an agenda. Russia is vehemently opposed to the nearness of NATO operations in its contiguous environment. It is opposed to Ukraine’s membership of NATO. This is the main background to the dispute and the ongoing war in Ukraine. The war is first between Russia and NATO before it is war between Russia and Ukraine. This is what Nigeria’s foreign policy has ignored, why it is reckless and raises how bad the President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) administration is managing Nigeria’s foreign policy and its implications for Nigeria’s relationship with Russia.

Policy Attitude and Recklessness

The first expression of the recklessness is in the attitudinal disposition of government officials. Without scintilla of doubt, Nigeria’s foreign policy has always been poorly managed, particularly under PMB. At best, it has been reactive, and the reactive measures have not always pointed to adequate protection of the national interest. It has generally been more of saying very nice things that are only self-defeating and creating new problems over which the PMB administration has control but is very remiss about. One immediate example is the attitude toward the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The poor management of Nigeria’s foreign policy was first show-cased at the level of the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Francisca Omoyuli. Premium Times reported on March 1, 2022, the case of a journalist who was seeking information on whether the visit of the Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, to Kenya would affect the evacuation of Nigerians in Ukraine. The journalist telephoned Francisca Omoyuli for a possible answer, but Francisca Omoyuli advised the journalist to ‘kindly see the interview granted today to the NTA Good Morning (Nigeria) by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’

The journalist complied but ‘attempts to listen to the interview on NTA’s YouTube Channel was inaudible,’ The Premium Times further reported. The journalist called the MFA spokesperson again to inform about the audio challenge. Most unfortunately, the journalist was simply asked if she, the journalist, was accredited to the MFA. No further discussion took place thereafter. No information was given on whether Foreign Minister Onyeama’s visit to Kenya would affect the evacuation of Nigerians from Ukraine. Whereas the inquiry by the journalist was made because of the serious concerns raised by the public. 

In this regard, what prevented the spokesperson from re-explaining what her Permanent Secretary had said on the NTA Good Morning Nigeria show? Was it that Francisco did not understand what the Permanent Secretary had said? What prevented the spokesperson from helping the Permanent Secretary further and defending the PMB government? Why must the provision of information be given only to accredited journalists? Even if the spokesperson is only authorized to disseminate approved information, why must a spokesperson not be diplomatic enough to avoid offending an information seeker? After all, the question to which a response is being sought is purely academic. It does not require any classified information but reflection. In any case, the general bad attitudinal disposition of the Foreign Ministry is manifested in many ways.

Secondly, it is useful to compare the hostile attitudinal disposition of the Foreign Ministry with the persuading attitude of the NiDCOM (Nigeria Diaspora Commission), headed by Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa. The Foreign Minister, Onyema and Dabiri-Erewa were part of the Nigerian official delegation to the Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), held in Kenya. Many Nigerians expected that PMB and his Foreign Minister would be more concerned about the plight of stranded Nigerians in Ukraine, rather than going to Kenya. It was against this background that an inquiry was instigated to find out what explanations there might be to give the public.

The answer given by Abike Dabiri-Erewa speaks volumes: ‘we are all working as we speak. There is an inter-agency team made up of Permanent Secretary of the MFA, NEMA, NiDCOM, NIA, Immigration, coordinating the evacuation expected to begin tomorrow. All Nigerians who have successfully crossed to Poland, Romania, Hungary, etc. have been received and catered for by our Missions.’

More significantly, Dabiri-Erewa said that the Foreign Minister and the Nigerian Ambassador to Poland ‘are doing everything to resolve the non-admittance of particularly African migrants at the Ukraine/Polish border and as announced by the Minister, evacuation begins tomorrow,’ (Wednesday, 2nd March, 2022). From this statement, it is the NiDCOM that is apparently giving hope to Nigerians, that is providing intelligible explanations. When compared to the Foreign Ministry, the position of the NiDCOM, as represented by its Chief Executive, is persuading and convincing. The position of the Foreign Ministry is very noisome and reckless, very uninspiring, and unpatriotic.

Probably the lackadaisical attitude of the Foreign Ministry may not be limited to itself. Last week, the National Association of Nigerian Students went to present their concerns to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, in Abuja. After listening to the NANS president who led the delegation, the Minister said only one good point was made by the students, which was the need to involve the students in the quest for solutions to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike. Having said that, the education minister stood up and left in arrogance. The students said they would embark on strikes that would be more serious than EndSARS strikes if their concerns are not addressed. The Minister could not think of the need to begin to disarm the students through persuasion, explanation of challenges confronting the Government, but only thought that the students were rude to him. Is the Government not rude to the striking lecturers by always taking with kid gloves agreements it voluntarily signed with lecturers? Non-performance of duties can warrant reactive rudeness. To prevent rudeness is to be always upright. Hiding under rudeness for non-performance is nothing more than a cover up. No nation can survive based on arrogant attitudinal incompetence. The Education Minister’s attitude is another manifestation of recklessness.

A third expression of foreign policy recklessness is the advice of Nigeria that Russia should withdraw its troops from Ukraine. This advice is most unfortunate because if Russia has defied UNGA resolutions on the Russian-Ukraine dispute, why should Nigeria expect that her own advice will mean anything to Russia? UN statements on the dispute have been generally rhetorical. The dispute is fundamentally between Russia and its allies, on the one hand, and the NATO countries, on the other hand. Nigeria cannot have greater influence than the UNGA in more meaningfully addressing the Ukrainian saga.

Unfortunately, too, Nigeria does not have any diplomatic history, tradition, or legacy to learn from. Government does not even bother to seek to sustain the Nigerian diplomatic tradition of the early 1960s and 1970s when Nigeria was the cynosure of all foreign policy eyes in international relations. Epicharmus once told us in his Fabuloe Incertoe, that ‘the wise man must be wise before, not after, the event.’ Without exaggeration, Nigeria does not learn before and does not learn after any event. Even though Lord Tennyson Alfred has also observed that ‘knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,’ there is no foreign policy wisdom in Nigeria that has the potential to linger or to be protective of the Nigerian national interest.

There was the time Professor Bolaji Akinwande Akinyemi came up with the ideas of a Black Bomb, a Concert of Medium Powers, and a foreign Policy Doctrine. The policy doctrine especially requires a country to consult with Nigeria before any partisan support is given. Today, even if we want to put Nigeria’s call for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine within the context of the need to fulfill UN obligations, the implications for national interest must still be first considered. Nigeria’s foreign policy position vis-à-vis the Russian-Ukrainian dispute clearly depicts a self-inflicting punishment invited by the Government on the Nigerian people. 

Nigeria’s Peace by War Alignment

Foreign Minister Onyeama was quoted as saying on 25 February 2022, during his meeting with envoys of the G-7 countries in Abuja, Nigeria that ‘peace and diplomacy … be prioritized by both sides,’ and that ‘we support every effort being made to stop the aggression,’ and that ‘Russian troops (should) return to Russia.’ Mr. Onyeama implied that Russia is the aggressor in his statement, and therefore the international responsibility of Russia should be called to question. The statement is strategically myopic because a polemological analysis of any conflict requires investigating not simply the immediate causal factors, but particularly the profound and remote causes, the coincidental and accidental factors. Nigeria’s foreign and strategic calculations, most unfortunately, have completely ignored these factors.

Asking that both countries should give priority to peace and diplomacy is good and welcome an interventional advice. However, to further advise that Russia should withdraw its troops from Ukraine is unnecessarily very partisan. This is not the first time of Russian invasion. The United States, with the active support of its NATO Allies, is also on record to have invaded many countries in the past. Both the United States and Russia, as successor to the former Soviet Union, are internationally guilty of aggression of many Member States of the United Nations. If Nigeria opted to keep quiet when the United States and its allies were aggressing other countries, why is Nigeria raising eyebrows now?

Even if we admit here that the decision was a resultant of Nigeria’s foreign policy of non-alignment, the decision cannot still be said to have been truly taken very sovereignly. This is because, at the meeting of the G-7 countries with the Nigerian Foreign Minister, Mary Beth Leonard, the US Ambassador to Nigeria; Catriona Laing, British High Commissioner to Nigeria; Samuela Isopi, the Head of EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS; as well as Representatives of the Embassy of Japan and Canadian High Commission were also at the meeting. Their attendance must have sent influencing messages. The mere fact that Foreign Minister Onyema was an international functionary in the US before his appointment as Foreign Minister cannot but also induce him into committing Nigeria into partisan international politics.

If we also admit that the advice of Geoffrey Onyema was sovereignly taken, and therefore considered as consistent with the meaning of Nigeria’s non-alignment policy, it cannot be rightly argued that the advice was in Nigeria’s own national interest, simply because Nigeria has very cordial ties with both countries despite the irritants in the relationships.

As we noted in one of our earlier columns on Russo-Nigerian relations (vide ThisDay, March 22, 2009, p.25; see also ThisDay of November 24, 2013, on the ‘New Intellectual Basis for Nigeria-Russia Relations, p.17) the relationship ‘is neither good nor bad. The relationship is both characterised by crises and cooperation, much expectation without action, and pledges without follow-up… Many Nigerians are doing well in Russia and many of them are also languishing in Russian jails.’ The most disturbing factor in the relationship is Russian perception of Nigeria as having a ‘penchant for not respecting the spirit and letter of agreements she voluntarily consented to.’ If Nigeria is internationally seen not to be a respecter of the agreements she voluntarily signs, is this a good image? Why should the ASUU expect its agreements with the Government to be voluntarily respected? Without doubt, Nigeria-Russia relationship is still fraught and is most likely to continue to be fraught with crises, conflicts, and cooperation.

Good diplomacy is about avoiding being the friend of one and not being the enemy of another. It is either total friendship or total enmity. Nigeria’s yeah should be yeah, and her no should be no. In other words, the objective of whatever position is taken should also be made crystal clear to the people of Nigeria. In fact, rather than seeking to taint an existing good relationship, one should build on it. Nigeria’s ties with Russia are only being strained unnecessarily because Nigeria’s policy stand has compelled Russia to take a hostile posture vis-à-vis Nigeria.

As noted above, Nigeria-Russian relationship has its push and pull factors. For example, at the level of cooperation, in August 1999, the then Minister of Power and Steel, Chief Bola Ige, held talks with Mr. Vladimir Artemyer, the Trade Representative of the Russian Federation in Nigeria, who noted that his country was ‘ready to renegotiate the completion of the project, which was terminated by the previous government, that is the Ajaokuta Iron and Steel Complex in Kogi State, which was begun in 1972 on an area of 240 sq kilometers and 98 percent physically completed and 80 percent technically completed (Daily Times, August 20, 1999, p.25).

In 2001, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Vladimir Putin met in March 2001 in Russia to discuss joint oil projects. Putin made it clear that ‘Russia is pursuing a policy of intensifying its relations with African countries… Recently, our trade turnover has fallen by a third. We agreed that within the next four or five years, the volume of trade should rise to 500 million dollars (about N60 billion) (Nigerian Tribune, March 7, 2001, P.1). In 2005, the Bureau of Public Enterprises sold the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) in Ikot Abasi to the Rusal (Bratsk) Aluminum of Russia, despite a subsisting court case instituted against it by the winner of the bid for ALSCON, the BFI Group (The Punch, April 18, 2005, p.104). More important, when two Russians, Messieurs Sergey Zamotaylov and Konstantin were kidnapped in 2009 at the ALSCON, the naval authorities and the Joint Task Force ensured their release to the Russian Ambassador to Nigeria Mr. Alexander Polyakov (ThisDay, February 21, 2009, p.7). 

Most significantly, when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, visited Russia at the instance of Gryzlov, Nigeria and Russia agreed to establish a joint parliamentary association within the framework of the International Parliamentary Conference between Nigeria and Russia (The Guardian, June 17, 2010, p.72). And most importantly, PMB visited Russia in November 2019 and came back with the pledged commitment of Russia to assist in the completion of the Ajaokuta Rolling Mill and commission it. These are part of the foundation pillars of Nigeria’s good relationships with Russia since 1999.

There are also many pillars of irritants, like many Russians arrested in Nigeria for oil theft (The Guardian, December 15, 2005, p.1 and August 5, 2005, p.3). There was also the court prosecution of twelve Russian airline crew members over N2.3 million indebtedness to a Lagos businessman. Balance of Trade has generally been in favour of Russia. These irritants had effects on the official relationship. Nigeria attached in Kano a Russian ship carrying weapons through Nigeria to Chad but was later released after certification that it was not carrying any internationally prohibited equipment (The Guardian, December 9, 2014, p.5). Thus, it has been crises and cooperation.

It is the same picture at the level of Nigeria’s ties with Ukraine. It should be noted here that Nigeria’s ties with Russia are more important than the relationship with Ukraine for various reasons. First, efforts were only made in 2005 to improve trade ties with Ukraine (The Guardian, April 11, 2005, p.29 and May 24, 2005, p.61). The relationship was not strong before then. Secondly, Nigeria’s relationship with Ukraine only dates to 1999, but as a constituent part of the former Soviet Union, the relationship dates to 25 November 1960. Thirdly, the Soviet Union stood by Nigeria during her civil war, especially when the United Kingdom and the United States initially to sell weapons to Nigeria to prosecute her war of national unity. Additionally, the Soviet Union gave active support to the establishment of the Ajaokuta Rolling Mill in Kogi State. These efforts necessarily place Russia on a higher pedestal.

Despite the increasing sanctions taken against Russia – EU Commission’s suspension of cross-border cooperation and transnational cooperation with Russia and Belarus; World Bank’s stoppage of all programmes in Russia; the suspension by the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Bank of their programming in Russia and Belarus; EU blockage of new research deal and payments, etc. – there is nothing to suggest that Russia will bow to the sanctions. The problem is more critical than it is lightly being taken by Nigeria.

“Grosso modo, Nigeria’s relationship with both Russia and Ukraine is what should be promoted and not promoting friendship with one to the detriment of the other. Nigeria’s call for Russian withdrawal of troops from Ukraine cannot but have serious implications for bilateral understanding. Already, a new Russian policy suspending the funding of foreign projects has been adopted and Nigeria’s Ajaokuta Steel industry cannot but be affected. In fact, there is a video in circulation in which Vladimir Putin told the world in Russian language that Russia would deal appropriately with Nigeria. As it is, Nigeria has more to gain from Russia than from Ukraine, bearing in mind the strategic importance of a quickly completed Ajaokuta Rolling Mill. The Russo-Ukraine conflict is one case that requires not only taking decision based on sovereign national interest but also not at all being partisan. Nigeria’s partisan alignment with Ukraine cannot bring peace but only deepen it. International politics as conducted and managed today is largely driven by unfairness, injustice, and impunity. Nigeria does not need to add salt into existing injury.”