Ademola Araoye
Ademola Araoye
With foreign policy, it was easy to let sleeping dogs lie. Foreign policy is considered arcane and too far removed from the daily struggle of the individual. It therefor does not warrant more than a just cursory interest. Questions that often arise do not seem immediately germane even to the national struggle. The impact of foreign policy outcomes is not so obviously appreciated in even such life threatening convulsions as Boko Haram. If the Nigerian Army had done its job meritoriously in the first instance, neither would a beleaguered President Goodluck Jonathanhave gone to France, nor would President Muhammadu Buhari have proceeded to Paris so shortly after his inauguration into office. And the MTN affair, that brought President Jacob Zuma, came to Nigeria at a most inconvenient time for him, buffeted by many challenges at home. Strangely, rather than focus on extricating the MTN and the jittery community of South Africancorporate bodies owning over 120 enterprisesfrom potential sanctions by the Nigerian regulators of international businesses, Buhari and Zuma outdid themselves by signing a historic accord that begins serious bilateral collaboration in the defence sector. For some, it is the first and singular most constructive and transformative engagement between Abuja and Pretoria in the post settlement era in Southern Africa. That the consequences of Nigeria’s fiasco in the Ivorian crisis would remain with us in a long time to come and keep West Africans effectively divided and contained in the hegemonic pre carres is not a reality that keeps the average citizen awake all night. Indeed, in truth, foreign policy may sound so elitist, it touches the life of the ordinary citizen in many more ways than he can imagine.
Meanwhile, the South Africa/Nigerian defense accord has greater import than the upteemth 2063 Agenda of the African Union- a …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
