X-Raying Nigeria’s Place in International Political Order
Whilst an assessment of President Tinubu’s foreign policy direction may be premature, a clearer articulation of the essentials of this doctrine, in terms of its achievable concrete policies and actions, is urgently required. Clearly, repositioning Nigeria as a global actor, and achieving the goals of the 4-D diplomacy, requires fixing Nigeria’s domestic challenges, tackling the prevalence of corruption and multidimensional poverty, safeguarding the welfare of Nigerians, guaranteeing the security of Nigeria and Nigerians and building a strong economy and currency. Moreover, it is absolutely important to silence the guns within the states as well as throughout the Gulf of Guinea, Sahel, and West Africa.
The 545th Inaugural Lecture of the University of Ibadan, titled, “The World in Transition : Understanding Power in the International Political System”, was delivered recently by Professor Irene Pogoson of the Department of Political Science who analysed Nigeria’s place in current international political order. Kemi Olaitan reports.
Society expects so much from the university as those in the gown are often seen to have solution to the myriad of problems facing the town. Thus when former Head of Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan and the first female lecturer in the department, Professor Irene Pogoson, delivered the 545th Inaugural Lecture of the nation's Premier University, it was an opportunity to share information about her research interest in International politics, Nigeria's foreign policy and gender studies.
Pogoson in the lecture titled, “The World in Transition : Understanding Power in the International Political System”, and the 11th from her department, started with an overview of the transformation of international power relations from the dissolution of the bipolar world order to the emergence of a multipolar arrangement, analysed Nigeria's foreign policy and regional influence as one of the dominant players in Africa and also drew important conclusions on the possible outcomes of the emerging world order and lessons for the conduct of Nigeria's foreign policy and gender rights.
The Professor of Political Science while elucidating on power and the international system, defined global power system as consisting of numerous actors each with varying degrees of autonomy, engaging in structured interactions to exert influence on one another. According to her, their independent decisions and policies, serve as catalysts for each other, either encouraging or limiting the actions of others.
She said, “The high degree of interdependent transactions among the actors in the contemporary political, social and economic spheres means that no actor is fully autonomous. The world order, as it is today, has passed through significant temporal shifts in global power dynamics during which different countries, regions, and groups exerted varied levels of influence. These changes inevitably reconstitute power relations among proximate and distant players and forces.”
The university Don noted that the common ground in the scholarship of international relations is power, maintaining that all lasting international orders have historically relied on stable power distribution and a basic agreement among nations regarding the principles of conduct.
Pogoson who examined the trajectory of the power shift on the global scene, declared that after the 12 years of the First and Second World Wars, Europe, particularly, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, the major world political actors lost their status politically and economically as the epicentre of international politics, leading to a power vacuum in the region that was filled by the United States of America and the Soviet Union, stating that after the war, the USA and USSR got engaged in a cold war due to economic-political polarisation.
According to her: “For four decades, the world order was unquestionably a bipolar system. The underlying rivalry of communism and capitalism became the dominant and constitutive divide in world affairs, with other countries choosing between the two camps or remaining non-aligned. By 1949, an arms race to develop the most powerful nuclear weapons further defined their relationship.
The weakened state of Europe set the stage for the liberation of African, Asian and Middle East countries from the shackles of imperialism and colonialism.
“International relations, thus, began developing a truly global character. However, the conclusion of bipolar competition, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the reunification of Germany, significant nuclear disarmament, and the decline of communism… contributed to ushering in a new era of global politics marked by American unipolarity.
The United States' position during the two decades following the Cold War, was one of economic and military dominance. The events and trends that manifested themselves post9/11, however, demonstrated the American vulnerability just as the American economy experienced a recession that stirred pronouncements of the beginning of the end of American ‘single-superpower' status. Furthermore, the world came to recognise the presence of nonstate actors capable of exerting significant influence on the behaviour of major state actors”.
She stressed that the global system has moved away from a bipolar system as the 21 century has indicated a shift towards a new multipolar global system, insisting that economic and political powers are becoming diffused as fast-growing nations like China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey and a number of others emerge.
Her words: “Globally, a multitude of forces are reshaping the world.Aplethora of new countries and actors are emerging as influential global contenders. The traditional division between the core and periphery – comprising affluent, industrialised nations and developing countries, respectively – is increasingly fading. An economic and political power shift is underway, marked by a diminishing influence of the “West” and a corresponding rise of the “East”.
“The emerging economies are ascending as regional powers and, even attaining global influence and actively reshaping the world order. Examples are the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS group. Both organisations have the potential to establish the groundwork for providing an alternative to the Western-led global system, or a new bloc capable of challenging Western influence in certain regions.”
On her assessment of the prospects of Nigeria in the current and emergent world order, Pogoson said the country has long been expected to assume a prominent role in both global and African politics as well as possessing a manifest destiny to emerge as a leading voice and actor in African and international affairs, due to her vast physical size, huge population, and abundant natural resources.
According to her, over the last 64 years, the conduct and administration of Nigeria's foreign policy, despite the numerous external and internal challenges, has witnessed notable successes which suggest the possibility of a broader range of achievements if only lessons can be learnt and reform initiatives properly launched.
On the place of the administration of President Bola Tinubu in the international order, she said the President came into power at a momentous period of global geopolitical and geostrategic alignments and realignments, with a foreign policy agenda representing a deliberate shift towards more intentional, dynamic, and valuedriven foreign relations, termed ‘Nigeria's 4-D Renewed Foreign Policy Doctrine', comprising democracy, demography, development, and diaspora.