A former External Affairs Minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, in an interview on Arise Television’s, The Morning Show, expressed his disapproval of a recent retreat organized by the Nigerian Governors Forum and facilitated by the UNDP in Kigali, Rwanda. He criticized the retreat as a “shameful” event that brought humiliation to Nigeria. Akinyemi suggested that the retreat should have been organized within Nigeria by local institutions, rather than relying on external facilitation. He also accused the UNDP of having hidden motives and called for the governors’ powers to be limited through the Supreme Court.

Akinyemi warned Nigeria in 1987 about its foreign policy and believes that South Africa has shown that Nigeria is its enemy number one. He advises Nigeria to embrace MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey) as an alternative to BRICS. The BRICS bloc recently agreed to admit several new members (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates), in a move aimed at accelerating its push to reshuffle a world order it sees as outdated but Nigeria was left out.

He said, “Let me start on a joke, because I’ve heard talk about Egungun and it reminded me of MKO Abiola’s advice. He said to those being chased by an Egungun, they shouldn’t worry as they get tired; so the Egungun gets tired. He puts it in Yoruba which is even more appropriate. You know, when you think things cannot get worse, then they do get worse. I can’t believe we will fall into the pit of shame by 19 of our governors going to Kigali Rwanda to learn how to govern. You know, in any case, if I say things can’t get worse next week, then they will get worse.

Speaking on what the UNDP up to and the signal they are sending to Africa, he said, “You know, maybe we should have foreseen this when joining the campaign. Our politicians, some of whom are now in office, kept going to London, going to Paris, having meetings there, about how they will configure development and progress and reconciliation in Nigeria and some of us spoke out loudly. We called them out. We criticized them. It made no difference. They still continued.

“I am of that age, when I remember Chief Awolowo, Sardauna, Balewa, Azikiwe, in all their campaigns, once we became independent, they never went to London, or Paris or the United States, as part of their campaign. They never did. During the Second Republic, Shagari, Awolowo, Aminu Kano, again, never left the country as part of their campaign and now we have a crop of politicians. You know, we criticize the old school but the old school seems to have more values, more patriotism, more integrity than this present lot. And when with all due respect to you guys on the programme, when you young people criticize the old school, I’m starting to wonder where this young school, the new school got their values from? Definitely not from the old school.

“When I was a minister, it was a battle to stop people even attending embassy parties because at that time, you will have many ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, we will find them attending receptions not even given by the ambassador but atimes given by your attachés and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will send out notes upon note. IBB whom I served under would issue cautionary notices at cabinet meetings about not demeaning Nigeria by flocking to these embassy parties.

“And now we got a better class of politicians, of rulers, governors, going to Kigali of all places? Yes, I do admit and I concede that the president of Rwanda inherited a terrible situation when he took power. Whether he had a hand in what happened or not, is a debate, a narrative for another day but you inherited a terrible situation. And he came up with his own system of dealing with that terrible situation. And what did he come up with? Clobbering the head of the opposition, not alive for human rights? Not alive for civil rights, a one man rule, a one man narrative? And, yes, we could talk about it. Whether when you are dealing with internecine conflict in a country where there are so many ethnic nationalities, whether frankly it should be a one party rule, which is a euphemism for a one man rule, whether that is the solution. But he came up with that and it seems to be working in Rwanda.

“But a word of caution here’ we saw really a one man rule in a lot of the Francophone African countries, and when the strong man died, be it in Cote d’Ivoire, or somewhere else, it descended into civil war, but maybe we should be the last one to talk about people descending into civil war, since we also had our own civil war.

“But on a serious note, we’ve got to sit down and decide what we want to make of Nigeria, and that will take me to I think, it was the intro by Rufai on BRICS. We were not invited to join BRICS. The vice president at least has clarified one point, which is that we didn’t apply. I have read somewhere by one of our eminent former ambassadors, that actually, you don’t apply to join BRICS, you are invited. So, whether we then applied or not, is not the case. The issue is that you know, and that’s the language that Ramaphosa used okay, we were not invited,” he added.

Speaking on whether not being invited by the BRICS mean that Nigeria’s international posture is not as great as it used to be, he stated that “No, no. What has played out in the summit in South Africa is what some of us had anticipated, as far back as 1987. I was the minister at that time. I warned Nigerians that the anti apartheid struggle was basically over. And Nigeria will have to redefine its foreign policy and know that there are going to be competitors for the status. Nigerians didn’t listen to me at that time. That is when I propose the concept of medium powers. You know, BRICS is a variation of the concept of medium powers. Nigerians rejected my proposal, even though foreign countries that we’ve invited, accepted that proposal.

“If Nigeria has embraced and pursued that policy, we will be the one in fact, who will have been determining the fate of South Africa, not South Africa, determining our fate. What’s played out in South Africa is let me call a spade a spade; normally, I’m diplomatic in my language. South Africa has simply shown itself as an enemy of Nigeria, that is determined at all costs to checkmate Nigeria, wherever it gets the opportunity to do so; whether it is the xenophobic attacks on our people there. South Africa thinks ahead, it already has its eyes on the election to the Security Council of the United Nations.

“Now it’s got BRICS, it’s got two of the super powers on its side and intends to use that to checkmate Nigeria. And yet, this is the time when we are saying we should be closing down embassies. Our embassies are badly financed. There are good people in that ministry. There are good ambassadors who are prepared to do their best but you cannot clap with an empty hand, you cannot perform your functions when you are not properly financed. South Africa continues to open embassies and continues to provide funds for relief. We are the ones who have become our own enemies and what has played out in the BRICS invitation even though it’s a setback for us. It provides us with an opportunity if we are going to grab that opportunity and what is that opportunity.

“There are more states outside BRICS now than there are in BRICS. You’ve got Chile, got Turkey. You’ve got Indonesia. You’ve got Pakistan and so on. These are also countries that are important; these are countries that Nigeria could approach and bring into an organization that is not going to be against the West or against the East. This is an opportunity for a clever application, again of a new concept of medium powers. Are we going to grab it? It’s up to those who are in power. Okay? This is not an advert but on Saturday, the Academy of International Affairs is having an open zoom town hall on BRICS, opportunities and can’t remember the rest of the title, to which all professional leads, those who are thinking about foreign policy are being invited to join and we hope to examine the ABC of the opportunities that the rejection in BRICS means to us.” (Daily Sun)

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