Why France can’t be Nigeria’s strategic partner (I)

I’ve seen and listened to many responses – some direct, others indirect – to my article on the problems of Nigeria’s foreign policy, which looked at Nigeria’s assigned role in BRICS as a “partner member” and its newfound love with France. That article has been widely circulated on Facebook and WhatsApp platforms as well as […]

I’ve seen and listened to many responses – some direct, others indirect – to my article on the problems of Nigeria’s foreign policy, which looked at Nigeria’s assigned role in BRICS as a “partner member” and its newfound love with France. That article has been widely circulated on Facebook and WhatsApp platforms as well as in a number of online Nigerian newspapers, including Premium Times, Daily Trust, and Intervention. It portrays Nigeria’s decision to join BRICS as a partner member as an indication of its declining role in world affairs and pursuit of a transactional approach in the conduct of its foreign policy. It also questions Nigeria’s full embrace of France, a historical rival, as a regional partner at a time when hatred for French neo-colonial policies in Francophone Africa is at an all-time high.

Two articles by Muhammad Al-Ghazali (in Daily Trust) and Toba Alabi, a professor of political science and defence studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy (in Future World), fully supported my arguments. Bolaji Akinyemi, the doyen of Nigerian foreign policy, also articulated a similar position as mine on Nigeria’s questionable partner member status in BRICS in an interview he gave on Channels TV on Trump’s inaugural lecture.

However, Mukhtar Imam, a professor of international relations and diplomacy at Al-Muhibbah Open University in Abuja disagreed with my arguments. He raised a number of points, many of them muddled and superficial or not thought through. The crucial point I take from his intervention is that in a rapidly changing world, Nigeria should weigh her options carefully before fully committing herself to global power blocs; and given Nigeria’s weak economy, a pragmatic approach, which will enable the country to attract trade and investments, is most appropriate for Nigeria’s foreign policy.

Nigeria’s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar—though not directly responding to my article—has also emphasised in his article on Premium Times, and in an interview he gave to Bloomberg at Davos in January 2025, Nigeria’s overlapping interests and need for pragmatism in pursuing the country’s economic and strategic interests. He referenced Africa as the centrepiece of Nigeria’s foreign policy and affirmed that Nigeria’s size gives it added responsibility to be the regional power or hegemon in West Africa.

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Tuggar also questioned the critical responses in the media to Nigeria’s ‘partner member’ status in BRICS in the Davos interview. He affirmed in both his article and in the interview that the foreign policy doctrine of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, or Nigeria, is ‘strategic autonomy’, which, he proffered, abhors the presence of foreign military forces in West Africa. This doctrine seems to convey a shift towards a transactional approach to foreign policy in the sense of giving Nigeria the freedom to transact deals with countries around the world. He did not, however, define what exactly “strategic autonomy” means. Autonomy from what or from whom? What Nigeria does in practice may provide clues.

Tuggar had also, in 2023, just after taking office, announced a 4D foreign policy doctrine (democracy, development, diaspora, and demographic divided), which he christened the ‘4D Tinubu Doctrine’ on foreign policy. This doctrine has generated wide-ranging critical reviews by foreign policy experts and pundits, many pointing out its lack of clarity on how the four Ds will impact Nigeria’s conduct of foreign policy.

The four Ds do look more like topics than a doctrine. How, for instance, can Nigeria defend or support democracy in its foreign policy when it suffers from a huge democracy deficit itself? Its party system is broken or anti-democratic; it cannot consistently organise credible, free and fair elections; and citizens can be arrested and detained for libel or criticising well-connected and influential people. Indeed, Nigeria scores poorly or below average in most global indexes that track democracy and governance.

As Femi Mimiko, a professor of political science at the Obafemi Awolowo University notes, the 4Ds are “rather too fluid in conception, too broad in scope, and too woolly in objective”7. Regardless, the idea of pragmatism, or working with all major powers and blocs, in a transactional way, seems to define Tuggar’s and Tinubu’s approach to foreign policy. I’ve also listened to a few interviews on the economic segments on Nigerian television channels in which the issue of pragmatism has been raised to justify the ‘partner member’ role granted to Nigeria in BRICS and the deepening of relations with France.

In this article, I want to demonstrate why France cannot be a strategic partner of Nigeria, and the dangers of pursuing a transactional foreign policy that is devoid of a strategic anchor. I will first demonstrate why pragmatism is a meaningless concept in the study of international politics, then provide in two sections, a historical overview of Nigeria’s foreign policy and France’s Africa policy. Subsequent sections explain why Nigeria’s relations with France are bound to be conflictual, Nigeria’s dysfunctional and transactional domestic politics, and the dangers of transactionalism in the conduct of foreign policy.

To be continued

 

Bangura wrote from Nyon, Switzerland and can be reached via  [email protected]