A cross section of the news media reported late last week that Nigeria sought for a place in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, in New York, last week, but came out worsted.
The election, through secret balloting among member states of the UN,was said to be for selecting eighteen more states, required to have full complement of the 47 member-Council.
The presidency promptly reacted, however, denying the incident of Nigeria contesting and being rejected for the Human Rights Council seat. The government statement explained that the miserable three votes that were reported as what Nigeria secured at the said election, must have been an error, since Nigeria did not stand for the election.
Of course, errors in counting and recording votes do occur in elections, especially in relation to Nigeria. To accept the presidency explanation on this matter, will, however, tantamount to accepting that the United Nations bureaucracy now functions like Nigerian agencies. The prospect of votes being recorded for a country that was not on a ballot at a United Nations election, seems, at best, preposterous, but no matter.
The Human Rights Council election on October 9 2024,as it was reported, was a part of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 79), which opened on September 10 2024 and was fully attended by a Nigerian delegation, led by Vice President, Kashim Shettima. Wife of the President, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, also stormed Manhattan for UNGA 79, leading along a posse of splendiferous courtiers.
It will not be out of place to expect that the conspicuous combo of Nigeria’s delegation to UNGA 79, comprising of the vice president’s team and the first lady’s group, would have made new friends for Nigeria,within the influential precincts of the United Nations in Manhattan, in the course of their outing. Nigeria can always do with new friends in a place like the UN.
The development of the country failing woefully at the Human Rights Council election at the same UNGA 79, as was reported, must have therefore,been a great let down. Where were all the friends made? It is better to assume, or accept, that the country did not contest for the Human Rights council seat and therefore, was not rejected by an overwhelming majority, as media reports had it. In fact,it is far better to accept that no such election held.
Those three lonely votes, recorded by “error” for Nigeria, according to the presidency, are, however, haunting. What version of UN IReV could have posted just three votes to a giant like Nigeria? Do they who we are?
The presidency further explained that the African countries that were elected into the Human Rights Council; Benin Republic, Gambia, Kenya, Democratic republic of Congo and Ethiopia, are brother African nations, all of who Nigeria supported all the way.
Some other countries, among them, Ghana, Burundi, and Cote d’Ivoire are already on the Council.
Reports about Nigeria’s rejection at the Human Rights Council polls had given the impression that the said outcome was a referendum on the human rights situation in the country under the Bola Tinubu government. It is understandable, therefore, that the presidency will quickly rise to explain that the country was not rejected at the Human Rights Council. The point that the presidency was struggling to make was that the Tinubu government’s human rights record was not subjected to any international judgment.
Even for all the explanatory efforts by the government, the idea of a diplomatic debacle at the UN Human Rights Council, true or false, provides an opening for a due interrogatory look at Nigeria’s foreign policy, or what passes for that, under the Tinubu government.
Nigeria did not present itself for election into the Human Rights Council, but it got three votes by error, said the government. Noted. Does that guaranty that had the country stood for the election it would have scaled through? That is rhetorical.
It is frightful to imagine that those three votes, by any chance, could have been a correct reflection of what member nations truly think of Nigeria at the moment. That will not only be embarrassing, it will mark a gross failure of diplomacy for the country and above all, a universal rejection of what Nigeria presently represents.
The recording of three votes for the country at a UN election, when it was not on the ballot, should, however, not be waved aside, as an error. Nigeria’s name cannot afford to be surfacing in result sheets for elections it did not enter for. That is how bad habits at home are taken abroad.
It may be pertinent to note at this juncture, however, that Nigeria is yet to have a full, or even a quarter complement of its ambassadors, or heads of diplomatic missions, seventeen months after the Tinubu government came into being. International diplomacy places ample emphasis on symmetricalness and hierarchy. A country without ambassadors, in most of its foreign missions, is short changing itself in the relations among nations.
Whatever administrative or political tardiness that has denied the country the benefits of having ambassadors on seat across the world, should be addressed without further delay. The possibility of a country posting three votes, whether by error, or in truth, in a ballot at the UN, or at any other international forum, will surely be reduced, if the full complement of its ambassadors were on duty.
Beyond this however, is the overarching context of the domestic environment, as the spring board for an active foreign policy. Nigeria, in the last seventeen months, under President Tinubu, has been characterized by tension, engendered, in the main, by a regime of disorienting socio-economic order, what former vice president Atiku Abubakar has deprecatingly dubbed T-Pain.
Nigeria’s present environment cannot conduce for any virile foreign policy.
Every elementary student of international relations knows the inextricable nexus between foreign policy and domestic policy or the domestic environment.The basic definition that foreign policy as an extension of the domestic policy says it all. In other words, a country that is at peace, buoyant and stable at home, will most likely have a stable, purposeful and robust foreign policy. The one that is largely unsettled and crisis-prone at home, with its citizenry gasping for air, will, by extension, find it extremely difficult to have any decisive foreign policy.
The fact that Nigeria does not, in truth, have any clear, identifiable foreign policy focus at the moment, cannot be a surprise to any knowledgeable analyst.
In truth, the absence,in recent years, of a clear, viable foreign policy handle for Nigeria, predated Tinubu’s emergence as president.
Nigeria, once the pride of Africa, with a robust foreign policy that was identified with its uncompromising decisiveness and independence, had lost its charisma, over time, undermined by its internal contradictions and poor choices of leadership.
Bogged down in the last decade, by unrelenting insecurity, that was, and continues to be associated with elements in top political stations, the country has not only lost its capacity to feed itself, it has also seen several key institutions of the state undermined and compromised to the point of stupor. No country that is so trammelled boasts of a robust foreign policy.
By the time Tinubu emerged, and added his curiously disorienting economic policies that have left the populace gasping for air, the prospect of the country regaining any firm foothold on the foreign policy arena was foreclosed.
Against this backdrop, Tinubu’s early attempt to sound strong and wield some influence in the West African sub-region, were bound to come to naught. Not surprisingly, his bid to play big brother and flex muscle in the sub-region, when he assumed office, were simply ignored by Niger Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso, who moved on to consolidate their union in the Alliance of Sahel states. These were countries that had existed under the influence and leadership of Nigeria in the years gone by.
For the Sahel Alliance, the Nigeria that is currently before them, offers neither inspiration, nor the resolute independence that was once its hallmark.This must be a poor version of the country Africa and the world used to know.
Nigeria has never had what Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter of USA, called ‘burden of global leadership’. That burden requires much more economic resources, military might and tactical commitment than majority of countries, including Nigeria, can ever imagine. It can be said of Nigeria, however, that it once carried a burden of continental leadership. It acquitted itself admiringly in that role,for some years. Alas, it has abdicated that responsibility, through a combination of self-destructive internal politics and subversion of the will of the people, not ignoring externally-induced crisis.
Whether Nigeria actually got three votes at the UN Human Rights Council election, or it did not truly present itself for the ballot, the reality of the moment is that there does not exist any viable domestic foundation for a foreign policy that can propel the country to any worthwhile destination it may wish for, in the cold, reality-based politics among nations.
EZEANI a is a renowned journalist and media consultant. Trained at the University of Lagos, Nigeria and the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, he is a widely acclaimed columnist and veteran newspaper editor.
