A Decade of Nigeria’s Economic Diplomacy: Issues and Challenges

A Decade of Nigeria’s Economic Diplomacy: Issues and Challenges

CHAPTER ONE

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is on examining the efficiency of ministry of foreign affairs and economic diplomacy of Nigeria foreign policy, but to aid the completion of the study, the following specific objectives are were put forward by the researcher;

To examine the impact of Nigeria economic diplomacy on Nigeria economy
To examine the impact of Nigeria economic development on Nigeria economy.
To ascertain the role of the Nigeria government in attaining economic diplomacy and development in Nigeria.
To determine the Issues and Challenges bothering Nigeria’s economic policy

CHAPETR TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

CONCEPTUAL REVIEW

Concept of foreign policy

The concept of a dynamic foreign policy first crept into intellectual discourse on Nigerian foreign policy in the first republic. It was on the occasion of the parliamentary debates of Nigeria foreign policy, wherein the then Foreign Minister Hon. Aja Wachukwu moved a motion that: ‘this honourable house reaffirms the foreign policy of the Federal Government as declared by the Right Hon. Prime Minister and approved on the 20th August, 1960 by this honourable house and hereby declares its approval of the government’s interpretation and conduct thereof, and congratulates the government on its achievement in the international field since the independence of this country. In his response to motion, the then shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Anthony Enahoro moved an amendment to this motion to read that: ‘the Honourable House is of the opinion that the foreign policy of the Federal Government as declared by the Prime Minister and approved on 20th August, 1960 by this Honourable House lacks dynamism and regrets that the Government’s interpretation and conduct thereof is out of step with progressive opinion in Africa’ (emphasis mine). In retort, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Hon. Aja Wachukwu, went on to reel out the foreign policy engagements of Nigeria and how these engagements were dynamic and that if these measures were not dynamic, then he doesn’t know what dynamic constitutes. By putting the concept of dynamism at the centre of this discourse, particularly making it appear as a core requirement of any foreign policy endeavour, the streak of dynamism gained currency as a fundamental basis of foreign policy making and evaluation in Nigeria.

The debate failed to operationalize the concept of dynamism and its utility and importance in the foreign policy process. The closest statement that pointed towards a conceptual operationalization was Anthony Enahoro’s radical rhetoric that subaltern groups in the country ‘represent the true voice and true temper of the people of the country’ and that as such any foreign policy measure outside of their sympathies is ‘lacking in inspiration, it is not dynamic.

The term diplomacy is subject to many misuses and confusion. At times, it is used as a synonym for foreign policy. Yet, there is wide agreement that its proper meaning has to do with the manner in which international relations get conducted. Generally, diplomacy is the process of conducting relations between and amongst states. It is the management of international relations by negotiation. In other words, it is the process of bargaining among states in bilateral and multilateral engagements in order to narrow areas of disagreement and widen areas of mutual co-operation. It is noteworthy that the emphasis on negotiation and bargaining does not imply the irrelevance of veiled threat of force or some other power capabilities in the arsenal of states once the diplomatic option is embarked upon (Badejo 1991). More often than not, diplomacy is interspersed with the threat of coercion as well as the military, economic, moral, or deriving from association with others, of the state for which the diplomat is acting. So, power capabilities in terms of economic, military, etc. constitute the arsenals in the armoury of the diplomat in extracting favourable agreements from other states.

CHAPETR TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

CONCEPTUAL REVIEW

Concept of foreign policy

CHAPTER THREE

ECONOMIC DIPLOMACY IN NIGERIA

Economic diplomacy is an emerging field of study in international relations that centers on the overall economic issues and interests of states and non-state actors in the international system. The concept of economic diplomacy is a relative term and its operationalization defies one universally accepted definition. Emeka (2009) sees economic diplomacy as the requisite skills or strategy utilized in maintaining the interplay of internal factors with external variables to achieve the sustainable development of the national economy.

According to Ajaebili, economic diplomacy, encourages and promotes investment, protects deals from inception to signing of contracts and in fact markets an entire nation as if it’s a business outfit itself. The diplomats would conduct trade events and seminars, attend trade shows, visit potential investors and be proactive in marketing the attributes of their country in 2011. It is on this premise that Folorunso (2015) argued that economic diplomacy is the utilization of the country’s foreign policy to achieve economic benefits. In other words, economic diplomacy is basically the utilization of the foreign policy means available at the disposal of the state and non-state actors in promoting the image of their country to woo foreign investors to enhance trade through their market potentials for the overall benefit of economic growth and national development. The concept of foreign policy like economic diplomacy is a relative term and its operationalization also defies one universally accepted definition.

CHAPTER FOUR

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

NIGERIA’S DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT

Foreign policy at its best is an extension of a state’s domestic policy and national interests and the incumbent administration has since sought to capture that in Nigeria’s foreign policy. Deplorable living standards at domestic level, and economic might as a determinant of influence at the global level make Nigeria’s economic development goal apropos. Difficulties prevail in a myriad of forms that include homelessness, unemployment, poverty and generally abysmal living standards, however the government’s economic diplomacy as an approach to foreign policy, in theory, promises to be a solution to Nigeria’s problems. Economic development demands a redress of the aforementioned issues, and the country will be closer to being among the 20 largest economies of the world by the year 2020. The latter ambition is captured in Vision 20:20:20. The Jonathan administration predicts that making FDI the hub of Nigeria’s foreign policy will remedy unequal distribution of wealth, encourage the trickle down of the nation’s wealth, and ensure that Nigerians’ welfare mirror the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $510 billion. Victoria Ojeme (2011) of Vanguard Newspaper in Nigeria reported that Ashiru emphasized, “Nigerians must benefit directly from our [Nigeria’s] foreign policy. It is in consideration of this that Nigeria’s foreign policy is being repositioned to support the domestic programmes and priorities of government, improve the living standards of Nigerians, including the creation of jobs and reduction of poverty.” The late Foreign Minister added that investments mean better quality of life for all. While the thrust of Jonathan’s foreign policy is pertinent to the needs of Nigerians, the question of its efficacy is one that will be looked into after analysing the foreign policy strategies that have been employed.

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

Many studies have been conducted on the benefits and disadvantages of economic partnership which is the essence of economic diplomacy. This part of the study presents the various empirical finding on this aspect of Economic partnerships. Nunnenkamp (et. al, 2007) argues that it is hard to have conclusive evidence supporting the view that developing countries should draw on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to spur the economic development (2007).His conclusion is that the positive effects of FDI are not guaranteed automatically but host economy and industry characteristics as well as the interaction between such characteristics affect largely the growth impact of FDI in the developing economies (2007).

Majocchi (2007) discusses the question whether market, trade and financial liberalization has any impact upon FDI location using the sample if Italian firms which made investments in seven Central and Eastern European countries. The study confirmed that market size and growth the availability of labor and the quality of infrastructure are important determinants of FDI location (2007). The study also found that the choice of FDI location was positively influenced by the extent of trade, financial and market liberalization and negatively related to openness to foreign banks (2007:1)Guda (2012) studies the impact of Chinese FDI in Nigeria and comparing with the Chinese FDIS he found that the local small and Medium Enterprises (SMES) faced many constraints including: stiff completion, difficult in raising capital, poor technology, poor skills, tax exemptions, pricing and poor access to efficient distribution network. Kisiku (2012) compare the investment climate of with other Africa countries in attracting FDIS and found that the inflows if FDIS were spread unevenly over the countries of sub regions of Central Africa, West Africa, East Arica, Southern Africa in which East Africa was at the bottom of the regions. Abdallah (2013) studies the costs and benefit of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) among the East Africa Community (EAC) member states and observed that EPAs showed both positive and negative impacts to the EAC countries.

However, she noted that EPAs would bring massive loss of fiscal revenues to the EAC governments and affect the regional employment. She argues that EPA was not a reliable agreement to the EAC, suggestion to the concentration on the regional integration. Lugakingira (2013) studies the market access challenges for the CP-EU Partnership Agreement and found a number of factors that hindered Nigeria to access the market. These included lack of: business experience, management skills, entrepreneurship skills, marketing information, capita and poor quality of products, export strategy and lack of support from the government. Mbwana (2012) assessed the impact of the East Africa Common Market of Nigeria and found that the market would provide a single and bigger market for goods and services but observed that the low level of awareness, fear, knowledge and government support to were major challenges which hindered the economic development. Having highlighted some theoretical and empirical studies on the subject, the following part discusses the concept of economic development

Summary

Economic instruments can be used both in foreign and national policy, therefore economic diplomacy and development should be understood and analyzed in the context of realities of national economy. Diplomacy is involved in the promotion of economic interests, creation of right conditions for profitable economic cooperation between different actors and enlargement the sphere of their influence.

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