On President Tinubu’s Foreign Expeditions

Postscript by Waziri Adio

Under four months of being in the saddle, President Bola Tinubu has signalled that foreign relations will be a major focus of his administration. He has undertaken official trips to five countries, assumed the leadership of the west African economic bloc, made strong pitches for Nigeria, the subregion and the continent, and delivered a well-scripted and thoughtful first speech at the UN General Assembly. However, the real work is at home, and the urgent work within is clearly much more important than the charm offensive directed at foreign investors and leaders. But Tinubu’s strong focus on foreign relations is not misplaced. Nigeria needs to reassert its place in the world. And crucially too, now more than ever, Nigeria needs urgent and meaningful outside support.

Tinubu has a foreign affairs minister who knows his onions and is a perfect fit for the job. Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar is an international relations expert and he put in a stellar shift as Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany. His is one of the few ministerial appointments that Tinubu got right. Incidentally, the other minister from Bauchi State, Professor Mohammed Pate, is top-notch too—which supports the argument that if Tinubu could find two solid ministers with major portfolios from just one state, he could have done better with the quality of his unwieldy cabinet. But we digress. The point is that with Tuggar, Nigeria appears to be in safe and competent hands on the international front. But at this time, we also need a president who is actively present on the international scene. Nigeria’s current commander-in-chief must be its marketer-in-chief.  

Nigeria remains a natural leader of the subregion and overtime, our country also asserted itself as a major voice of the continent and of the black race. The size of our population and our economy, and our sense of responsibility and commitment made an eloquent case for us. Even when in a different subregion, Nigeria became a frontline state in the fight against apartheid and for decolonisation in southern Africa. In the west African subregion, Nigeria was the big brother and the guarantor of security—and even of democracy at a time we ironically lacked same at home. And Nigeria was consistently a big voice for a fairer and more balanced world order. But the past and natural advantages are not always good predictors of things. Nigeria fell off the international space in the last decade and a half, consumed by its internal economic and security challenges on the one hand and, on the other hand, enfeebled by leaders without the consciousness or the capacity to balance the internal and the external.

With so much going in the world and in our immediate neighbourhood at the moment, Nigeria as a state needs to return to the global stage. Yes, we have Nigerian citizens playing prominent roles in key global and regional organisations like the United Nations, World Trade Organisation, and the African Development Bank. But these are individuals working and speaking for those organisations and not for Nigeria. The world and our neighbourhood need us to play a leadership role in addressing the burning issues of an evolving multipolar world order. A case can be made that Nigeria needs to get back on its feet first before it can start thinking of taking on additional burdens, and as such Nigeria should concentrate more on resolving its pressing internal challenges.

This is a compelling argument. The argument is reinforced by the fact that the time the president spends on foreign affairs is the time he is not spending on domestic issues. However, the argument assumes that Nigeria and its president do not have enough bandwidth to walk and chew gum at the same time. Not necessarily. Besides, the two domains—the domestic and the foreign—are not mutually exclusive. In actual fact, they are intertwined, mutually reinforcing even.

Focusing more on tackling insecurity and halting the coup contagion in West Africa are in Nigeria’s enlightened self-interest. Besides, we also need the world to help us get back on our feet. We need help and should not be shy in, or ashamed of, asking for help. We need to make a strong case that a stronger Nigeria is good for itself and for its neighbours but also for the globe. The world is better off with a Nigeria that can take care of itself and its immediate surroundings. We need to position or reposition Nigeria as a country of strategic importance and practical utility to the world in general and to key power centres in particular. Tinubu’s speech at UNGA did a good job of this. On the balance, his leadership of ECOWAS has also helped is showing the potential value of a reawakened Nigeria. But we need to consistently make this case, and there is no one better placed to make the case more than the president himself. He is the country’s chief salesman.

To be sure, Tuggar, our other diplomats and envoys, and the other ministers need to do the groundwork and the heavy lifting. But the presence of the president in the room can make a lot of difference. His personal touch and commitment can reassure investors. His outreach to and relations with other leaders can work wonders. It is thus not enough for Tinubu to prioritise foreign relations but he must constantly bring on his A-game to ensure that the opportunities are sufficiently optimised.

Just to be clear, Nigeria needs serious help in material and non-material ways: to win the more than a decade-old and ever-expanding war on terror, to attract portfolio and direct investments, to put its people to meaningful work, and to boost forex inflows. On the last point, we need immediate dollar inflows of between $10-$20b to stabilise the value of our currency and stem the attendant negative impacts on prices, especially of petrol, and on cost of living in general. There is a risk that the president’s early and well-received reforms on petrol and forex subsidies may unravel without an urgent resolution of the dollar supply challenge.

It is clear that the world powers and the multilateral financial institutions are not too keen in putting their money where their mouth is, and that the Nigerian elite and populace are sceptical about an IMF bailout. Rising prices of crude oil is a double-edge sword for us, and will not immediately translate to the quantum of dollar inflows needed to clear the forex backlog and calm the market. It is therefore important to seek immediate lodgement support from countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia. In 2022, Saudi Arabia agreed to deposit $5b into Turkey’s central bank and earlier this year committed to buying drones worth about $3b from Turkey. Similarly, UAE signed agreements worth $50.7 billion with Turkey. This is the kind of significant support we need, and it is better to target those likely to provide it than those offering just endorsements and promises. We don’t have drones to sell and may not be as strategically important to these gulf countries as Turkey is. But we should make our pitch and press the needed buttons.

Our foreign engagement must be strategic and clear-headed. That era of engaging in the international arena just for the sake of it or just for being a big brother should be over. We should be very clear about we want from each relationship in the short, medium and long terms and what our bargaining chip is.

I fully endorse Tinubu taking international engagement seriously. But as he re-engages Nigeria with the world, he needs to factor in a few things as well as manage certain things better. The first thing is that we need to manage our expectations. Investors will not start pouring into Nigeria just because the president has reached out to or reassured them. Or because they like or want to help Nigeria. Investors are rational economic agents and will only go to and stay where they can get decent returns on their investments.

Even when you bend over to meet investors’ demands, there is no guarantee they will stick with you if they can get better returns elsewhere. We are competing with others for a limited pool of investment funds. So, we need to stay competitive and we need to stay the course. It is not a surprise that most foreign investors are currently adopting a wait-and-see attitude. They want to see how the reforms will hold out and learn from how we treat our current investors. We need to make Nigeria super attractive to investors (starting from local and current investors), remove constraints to investments and avoid dissonance between what we say and do to investors. Also, we should be mindful that there will be a time-lag between investment commitments and actions, and manage that accordingly. This is why it is easier to get more quickly from those already locked in or doing business here.

We need to constantly review what our foreign relations goals are based on changing dynamics within and without. As a country, it is good to be a good global citizen. But the global game is driven by national interests. It is not an arena for altruism. We need constant clarity about what we stand to gain from each partner, engagement and partner, when and how. Without a doubt, we have traditional allies and values, and we should stay loyal to those as much as possible. But international relations is just another arena of politics: there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. The challenge then is how to position ourselves well enough to ensure we can always protect and project our national interests.

The presidency also needs to manage its communication better. The prior internal consultations on the situation in Niger could have been better handled. The announcement about UAE’s lifting its visa ban on Nigeria and Emirates Airlines resuming flights to Nigeria immediately is a diplomatic gaffe. The statement about the president being the first African leader to ring the NASDAQ closing bell is a plain embarrassment that had to be walked back. Mistakes happen, especially in the management of public communication. It is important to learn from early mistakes, and put in place mechanisms to prevent reoccurrence. It seems there is an internal pressure to show quick results. Such pressures and temptations should be reined in and definitely should not be at the expense of facts. Credibility is critical to both domestic and foreign relations.

Lastly, the president must strike the needed balance between internal and external engagements. As stated earlier, retrieving Nigeria from the margins of international affairs is a needed task, especially now. But that should not be prioritised over the heavy lifting needed at home. A sense of proportion is vital. For President Tinubu and for Nigeria, home is where the bulk of the work is.