A coalition of activists, led by Femi Falana (SAN), at Dr. Musa Babayo’s book presentation in Abuja, deliberated on the government’s anti-corruption crusade, economic and foreign policies and the way forward. Gboyega Alaka reports.
Although President Muhammadu Buhari has embarked on a global pilgrimage to right the wrongs and atrocities committed by successive regimes and improve the nation’s image in the comity of nations, his mission and intentions, however noble, may remain a Sisyphean exercise, if priority is not given to the fight against corruption, economic diplomacy and foreign policy.
This was made known at the presentation of the book: “Economic Diplomacy and Nigeria’s Foreign Policy,” written by Dr. Musa Babayo, immediate past chairman, Board of Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Legal practitioner, Femi Falana (SAN), and a coalition of activists seized the opportunity of the occasion to provoke a discussion on why the Buhari administration should beam its searchlight on reviving the country’s foreign policy and the anti-graft crusade.
In a lead paper, titled: “The right to accountable government in Nigeria,” Falana was not happy that what should be a national commonwealth has been hijacked and placed under the control of a few hands. This, he said, runs contrary to nationalism and principles behind demands for independence. Nigeria has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and is therefore under a duty to ensure the exercise of the right to development and respect the economic, social and cultural rights of the people, with due regard to their freedom and identity and in the equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind.
Falana is not comfortable with the politicisation of government’s anti-corruption crusade; especially with allegations of vendetta being read into the Buhari government’s actions. He said, “Since the allegations of bias or persecution being levelled against the EFCC are deliberately designed to discredit the renewed fight against corruption and shield looters from prosecution, it is high time that the attention of Nigerians was drawn to the fact that corruption is fighting back.”
He noted that majority of the petitions that formed the basis of the ongoing investigation by the EFCC were submitted before the emergence of the Buhari administration.
On his part, Babayo said Buhari’s anti-corruption drive should be pursued with all amount of vigour and radicalism, considering that over $157 billion has been lost by Nigeria, according to a Global Financial Integrity report, to illicit financial flows between 2003 and 2012. He said this is where the nation’s foreign policy formulators should intervene.
Babayo also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to “turn his attention to the activities of multinational corporations in Nigeria, with a view to repatriating the funds stolen from Nigeria and putting a stop to further bleeding of the nation’s economy.” He drew a parallel between the economic policies of Buhari as a military Head of State and now as a civilian president and wondered if there were lessons from his economic policies then that could be useful in the current administration.
A former Minister of Foreign Affairs and founder of Savannah Centre, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, on his part, expressed concern about the fact that “Africa has the highest amount of foreign investments abroad.” He wondered how Nigeria and indeed Africa can be great, if the people do not invest at home. He said decades of talks on diversification of the economy from a mono-economy should now be translated into concrete actions, with all major stakeholders coming together to foster better economic management.
Gambari, who was former head of United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur, said government must tackle headlong the current socio-economic challenges, such as high poverty level, huge youth unemployment and perennial disconnect between the government and the citizens. He advocated “a new permanent inter-ministerial council which would provide an effective link between our general foreign policy endeavours with external trade and international economic interest.”
His views were supported by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, who bemoaned the deplorable state of most Nigerian foreign missions saying, “Almost half of our missions overseas are in deplorable condition.”
Ahmed therefore emphasised the need for the present government to critically review the number of Nigerian embassies abroad. The ex-SGF said, “We have to get the management of our resources right in this country. When we can predict that work on the second Onitsha Bridge will start and be completed in a certain time, then we would have improved.”
He denounced a situation where Nigerian politicians make every development issue political, wondering how it is that “At the time of campaign, we will go and say Onitsha Bridge will be completed,” only to use the same bridge to campaign at the next election? He therefore clamoured for proper national planning, as was being attempted by the late Yar’ Adua administration.
President of Public Interest Lawyers League, Mr. Abdul Mahmud, gave a legal insight into Nigeria’s foreign policy, when he argued that for almost a decade and half, Nigeria’s foreign policy has retrogressed almost to a point that her claim of Africa as its centre-piece is today a non-recognisable relic of the foreign policy museum.
He argued that “In the years following Nigeria’s glorious contributions to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles on the continent, there has not been any conscious attempt at reinvigorating her foreign policy to meet contemporary realities, globalisation, high modernity and the plurality of global politics.”
But if others were interested in anti-graft crusade and foreign policy, the Executive Director, Human Rights Monitor, Festus Okoye, wants Buhari to implement the report of the 2014 national conference. He said since the last all Nigerian conference on foreign policy, nothing has been said about it again and posited that “You cannot embark on good and effective foreign policy if everything takes us by surprise.”
