Interrogating Minister Tuggar’s ‘strategic autonomy’ thesis, By Jideofor Adibe

…it turns into precisely unclear what Minister Tuggar means by Strategic Autonomy. It’s going to definitely be unsuitable for the minister to mistake a number of dependencies or perhaps a non-alignment coverage, for Strategic Autonomy. Is Nigeria actually capable of obtain Strategic Autonomy (that means appearing independently) whilst a regional energy, the place nearly all of the nations within the area are additionally depending on one huge energy or the opposite?

Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, 57, Nigeria’s minister of Overseas Affairs, in a extensively circulated opinion article entitled, “Overseas Coverage and The Path To Peace in A Harmful Neighbourhood,” principally sought to defend President Tinubu in opposition to un-named critics of his authorities’s obvious closeness to the French authorities, and his dealing with, as chairman of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Authorities, of the navy coup in neighbouring Niger Republic. The coup d’état, which passed off on 26 July, 2023, led to the nation’s presidential guard eradicating and detaining President Mohamed Bazoum. The sub-regional group unadvisedly gave the leaders of the navy coup one week to reinstate the ousted Bazoum, and urged a potential navy motion in the event that they failed to take action. Moderately than again down, the navy authorities in Niger, in live performance with the navy juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, gave discover of their withdrawal from ECOWAS and later shaped the Alliance of Sahel States – or Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) in French.

Written in urbane, entertaining and flowery prose, the minister’s intervention may very well be interrogated on a number of fronts:

One, on criticisms about France’s purported closeness to President Tinubu, Tuggar floated the thesis of ‘Strategic Autonomy’. As he put it: “The fulcrum of the Tinubu administration’s overseas coverage is Strategic Autonomy, offering us with the readability to have interaction with any and all nations primarily based on our nationwide pursuits and never these of others. As a nation, Nigeria is grownup sufficient and complex sufficient to cope with nations with out being unduly influenced, as a result of that has been a part of our historic and civic custom. You can not treatment an sickness by choosing which signs to contemplate and which to disregard.”

The concept of Strategic Autonomy is just not unique to Tuggar. In worldwide relations, it’s outlined as the flexibility of a state to pursue its nationwide pursuits and pursue its most well-liked overseas coverage choices with out relying closely on different overseas states. The idea was popularised by the European Union, which outlined it as the flexibility of the Union to not be overly reliant on the US in terms of defending Europe and its neighbours, and to have the ability to pursue overseas insurance policies that shall be impartial of these of the US. It must be recalled that the European Council had in December 2013 known as for the event of European defence capabilities to reinforce the strategic autonomy of the European Union.

Following the defeat of Donald Trump within the 2020 presidential election in the US and a perception that Trump’s presidency had proven that the USA may very well be an unreliable associate, France turned the chief advocate of Strategic Autonomy on the European Union degree. Macron was quoted as advocating that the European Union ought to try to be a “third tremendous energy” and will keep away from being drawn into any confrontation between the USA and China over Taiwan. It is very important underline that ‘Strategic Autonomy’ for the European Union is just not solely about navy and political autonomy from the USA but additionally about securing autonomy on financial, vitality and digital insurance policies.

Given the above, there are a variety of points with Tuggar’s ‘strategic financial system’ argument. As an example when he talked concerning the fulcrum of Tinubu’s coverage being ‘Strategic Autonomy’,  the subsequent logical query must be, “Strategic Autonomy” from whom? The European Union’s Strategic Autonomy is clearly directed on the USA. Given the present state of affairs of a number of dependencies of our nation – depending on China and the Bretton Woods techniques for exterior loans; depending on the West for its know-how; depending on the validation of  Western establishments like Fitch and assume tanks like Chatham Home, to validate its financial and political processes; and even depending on overseas nations for coaches for its nationwide soccer staff, it turns into precisely unclear what Minister Tuggar means by Strategic Autonomy. It’s going to definitely be unsuitable for the minister to mistake a number of dependencies or perhaps a non-alignment coverage, for Strategic Autonomy. Is Nigeria actually capable of obtain Strategic Autonomy (that means appearing independently), whilst a regional energy, the place nearly all of the nations within the area are additionally depending on one huge energy or the opposite?  

Two, with respect to the ECOWAS’ administration of the 26 July, 2023 navy coup d’état in Niger Republic, Tuggar wrote: “President Tinubu pushed for the unconditional removing of ECOWAS sanctions imposed on Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. What he has persistently requested of the nations in query is for them to give you a timetable for the restoration of constitutional rule and, within the case of Niger, the discharge of ousted President Bazoum.”

…ECOWAS beneath Tinubu inadvisably gave the coup leaders a one-week ultimatum to return Bazoum to energy or face the prospect of a navy intervention. It made this risk when it had no troops in Niger, and no technique of imposing its threats. That was clearly a failure of deterrence as a technique of utilizing the facility to harm as a bargaining chip. For deterrence to work, it have to be credible. If ECOWAS’ risk of navy intervention was meant to be a deterrence technique, it was clearly not credible.

Whereas the diplomatic efforts talked about by the minister in the direction of the three states could also be true, in addition they masks the truth that Tinubu, as chairman of the Authority of Heads of States of ECOWAS, mismanaged the difficulty of the coup in Niger:

First, ECOWAS beneath Tinubu inadvisably gave the coup leaders a one-week ultimatum to return Bazoum to energy or face the prospect of a navy intervention. It made this risk when it had no troops in Niger, and no technique of imposing its threats. That was clearly a failure of deterrence as a technique of utilizing the facility to harm as a bargaining chip. For deterrence to work, it have to be credible. If ECOWAS’ risk of navy intervention was meant to be a deterrence technique, it was clearly not credible.

Second the fixed risk of conflict by ECOWAS seemed that the newly ascendant Tinubu authorities was being pushed by Western powers, which had strategic pursuits in Niger, to go to conflict. Some have urged that ECOWAS’ eagerness to revive constitutional order in Niger after the coup (when it didn’t show the identical enthusiasm with the navy coup in Mali in 2020 (two navy coups) and in Burkina Faso in 2022 was due to fears that the coup in Niger would possibly torpedo the Trans-Saharan Gasoline Pipeline Mission, which was deliberate to attach pure gasoline pipelines from Nigeria to Algeria to plug into European gasoline provides. It must be recalled that in 2022 Algeria, Nigeria and Niger signed an MoU to revive the estimated $13 billion venture, which was initially conceived greater than 40 years in the past. The gasoline pipeline measured 4,128 kilometres – of which 1,037 kilometres is in Nigeria, 841 kilometres in Niger, and a pair of,310 kilometres in Algeria. Remarkably, Bazoum that ECOWAS was combating to reinstate in workplace had publicly backed the 2021 navy coup in Chad. At a joint press convention with French President Emmanuel Macron, Bazoum claimed that the safety context justified the suspension and violation of the Chadian structure.

Third, whereas it’s true that the coup leaders in Niger lacked legitimacy by advantage of the truth that they got here to energy by way of an unconstitutional means, Tuggar forgot that a lot of the leaders of ECOWAS additionally face numerous levels of legitimacy disaster. The argument right here is that there are literally three sorts of coups in Africa – navy coup, constitutional coups (the place leaders elongate their tenure by altering the constitutions of their nations to take away time period limits that might have prevented them from staying past a sure interval in workplace) and election rigging (the place the leaders manipulate the electoral course of to achieve energy). In essence, whereas the coup leaders in Niger lacked legitimacy, the identical is also stated of lots of the leaders of the sub-regional group condemning the navy takeover within the nation.

Not solely has France’s insurance policies in the direction of its African colonies been problematic, France has additionally been variously suspected of undermining ECOWAS for the reason that Nineteen Seventies by sponsoring rival organisations to weaken it. Some have argued that with many French talking African nations having a dim view of France, the latter is attempting to stay related in Africa by warming as much as nations like Nigeria.

Three, there stays a lingering suspicion of the position of France in Africa. Not solely has the European nation’s insurance policies in the direction of its African colonies been problematic, France has additionally been variously suspected of undermining ECOWAS for the reason that Nineteen Seventies by sponsoring rival organisations to weaken it. Some have argued that with many French talking African nations having a dim view of France, the latter is attempting to stay related in Africa by warming as much as nations like Nigeria. In article within the Day by day Belief of  9 December, 2024, entitled, “What does France need from Tinubu?”, Suleiman A Suleiman raised suspicions concerning the chummy relationship between France and President Tinubu. Let me quote parts of the article:

“There isn’t any gainsaying that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu obtained the loudest ‘worldwide recognition’ of his presidency but throughout his latest two-day state go to to France, the primary by a Nigeria president since Obasanjo was obtained by Jacques Chirac in Might 2005, nearly 20 years in the past. However since there are hardly coincidences in politics, definitely not in worldwide politics, we should increase the suitable query: What does France need from Nigeria that it could deal with our president to probably the most lavish state reception of his presidency up to now?”

Suleiman additional famous:“President Tinubu obtained greater than a red-carpet reception in Paris. The French made certain that the Nigerian delegation obtained the message that they regarded this as an necessary go to. President Emmanuel Macron welcomed his Nigerian counterpart on the Les Invalides advanced, a spot that holds a lot of France’s imperial historical past, vestiges of which now appear threatened throughout a lot of Africa. Macron was profuse with reward for our president, whom he known as a “buddy”. At a joint press convention, Macron stated President Tinubu is “a fantastic chief”, who will remodel Nigeria the best way he reworked Lagos, exactly the type of issues that Tinubu, politically embattled at house by an more and more stressed citizenry groaning beneath the load of his financial insurance policies, want to hear stated about him by a overseas chief, higher nonetheless a European one.”

Suleiman famous that how “world leaders” use flattery to therapeutic massage the bloated egos of African leaders so as to get what they need.  Following from this he expressed considerations concerning the effusive flatteries heaped on President Tinubu by Macron and concluded that, “we should fear as a result of President Tinubu seems to be working a one-man overseas coverage, and for the reason that penalties of overseas insurance policies usually outlast the administrations that enter into them, we should ask but once more, what did President Tinubu promise the French that’s not now within the information? We should know as a result of our future as a safe nation would possibly but rely on it.”

Following from the above, if the Alliance of Sahel States stay cynical or impervious of ECOWAS’ diplomatic strikes, it could be appearing on the aphorism that the buddy of my enemy is both my enemy too or at finest can’t be trusted.

Jideofor Adibe is a professor of Political Science and Worldwide Relations at Nasarawa State College and founding father of Adonis & Abbey Publishers. He will be reached at: 0705 807 8841 (WhatsApp and Textual content messages solely).