House Committee Decries Current State of Nigerian Institute for International Affairs

Sunday Okobi

The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs has decried the current state of infrastructure at the apex Nigerian Institute for International Affairs (NIIA), declaring that the state of the Institute is unacceptable, regrettable and reprehensible.

The committee led by its Chairman, Hon. Wole Oke, and other members of the committee, who were on an oversight visit to the Institute in Lagos yesterday, expressed dismay at what they saw and heard about what used to be the premier foreign policy academy for Nigeria and Africa, “in fact the African version of the London Chatham House.”

The committee members, who condemned the utter neglect and dilapidated state of the infrastructure at the Institute, were unanimous that “sadly, the place is now an obvious poor shell of its former stature,” declaring that for a Think-Tank of that pedigree to sink into such a dire shape, “responsibilities and laws must have been broken, and fidelity to its core mandate abandoned.”

They therefore, agreed that the place demands and deserves urgent intensive care and attention for speedy recovery and rehabilitation.

Oke said: “We must be deliberate in prioritising the legacy status of this monument as the cornerstone of not just Nigeria, but as Africa’s foreign policies incubator, integrity, and sustainability.”

He therefore, promised that they would rally all that is necessary and follow up on every constitutional step to help return life to the Institute’s critical infrastructure and depleted human resource capital.

Earlier, while conducting the members through what still count as facilities there, the Director-General of the Institute, Prof Eghosa Osaghae, thanked the oversight committee members for their visit and deeply reflective engagements, saying that as the true representatives of the people and protector of their institutions, “seeing by them is believing, and to us so strategic for life support.”

 The committee saw the famous sought after NIIA conference hall, now rejected by clients for dearth of basic amenities, which can serve their catchment community profitably if revamped; a dilapidated and unsafe senior staff quarters, and a huge library of books with little patrons. “There were, however, rays of hope as donors endowed projects are going on for future inauguration,” he revealed, while passionately pleading with the lawmakers to help recover and return it’s property in Abuja forcibly appropriated and kept by other agencies of federal government.”