One of the main challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari is the urgent need to reduce the overall cost of public administration in the country. This has soared over the years. There is a national consensus that the bureaucracy at all levels of government has become too large and that a reduction in its size and cost has become imperative. The current sharp decline in oil revenues, which have fallen this year alone by over 60 per cent, leaves the governments of the federation with no choice but to begin to think seriously about how these much needed cuts in the cost of public administration can be achieved. President Buhari is well aware of this challenge and has alluded to it publicly several times. But he has not yet taken any practical or concrete steps to address this lingering problem. It is a difficult and painful task, which requires great care and circumspection, particularly at a time of mass unemployment.
However, there were recent media reports that while being briefed by the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Lulu, President Buhari expressed his concern about the large number of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions abroad, and the huge number of its overall diplomatic workers. Ambassador Lulu told the press that the President informed him that he intended doing something to reduce the number of our foreign missions. It is also possible that the overall staffing of the Foreign Ministry itself will form part of the review being proposed.
There is no doubt that the number of Nigerian diplomatic missions abroad has increased significantly in recent years. At independence in 1960, Nigeria had less than a dozen diplomatic missions, mainly in Africa and Western Europe. In 1964, when I entered the diplomatic service, this had increased to about 30, in response to the need to have diplomatic representation in the newly independent African countries. By 1976 the number of our diplomatic missions had increased to 65. The civil war had ended and the need was felt for more missions to be opened abroad. From 1970 to 1976, over 100 new Foreign Service Officers (FSO) were recruited to staff both the expanded Foreign Ministry and the new diplomatic missions abroad. There was also a surge in oil revenues that made the increase in the number of missions and diplomatic workers possible and sustainable.
Today, we have 119 diplomatic missions abroad and it is becoming increasingly clear that in our present dire financial situation, it is going to be difficult to sustain such a large number of diplomatic missions and workers. In 1964, the overall cost of our total diplomatic establishment, at home and abroad, was only 33 million pounds sterling. Since then, the cost of running both the MFA and our diplomatic missions has continued to rise inexorably. According to an official document issued by the MFA in 2012, by 2006, the total MFA budget appropriation was N25.2b, of which over N20.2b, or 81 per cent, was spent on running our foreign missions. In 2011, budget appropriation for the MFA had increased to over N40b, with our foreign missions still accounting for over 81 per cent of the overall cost. This is where the major operating cost of the MFA is incurred. Average personnel cost of the MFA is less than N4b. Huge as these figures may appear to be, they account for an average of only one per cent of the total federal budget. In fact, it was only in 2007 that budgetary allocations to the Foreign Service reached 1.34 per cent of the budget of the Federal Government.
Two issues arise from this analysis. First, is the state spending more on its foreign representation than other public agencies? Relative to other agencies of the Federal Government, can we really say that the cost of running the Foreign Service, with its enormous global responsibilities, is too much. It is by no means clear that is the case, except that most of the cost incurred in running the Foreign Service and our diplomatic missions abroad is in foreign currencies. It is this that leads the public and the government to demand a reduction in appropriations to the MFA. For example, defence and national security take an average of 10 per cent of the budget annually, education about seven per cent, home administration over 12 per cent. So in real and comparative terms, the overall cost to the nation of its Foreign Service is not as high as it seems. The second issue regarding costs is where the cuts, if necessary, are to be made. Is it in the cost of personnel or the number and size of our diplomatic missions abroad? I raise these questions because previous efforts to cut the cost of running the Foreign Service have on the whole focused on the senior staff of the MFA rather than on the large number of our foreign missions, which account for over 80 per cent of the overall cost of running the Foreign Service. As a matter of fact, in 1976 and 1984 when there were purges in the Foreign Service, more diplomatic missions were opened after. This showed that the purges were political and not motivated by any demonstrable need for cost reduction. Only a few years ago, a new diplomatic mission was opened in Juba, South Sudan, and our embassies in Caracas, Belgrade, the Vatican and Prague, which had been previously closed, were all reopened. Even the MFA complained officially about these inconsistencies in the manner our missions are opened, only to be closed later for lack of funding.
The fact of the matter, often ignored by the government and the public, is that some of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions were opened to accommodate failed politicians and hacks who demand diplomatic postings as compensation from the government. Of Nigeria’s 119 diplomatic missions, about 60 have non-career ambassadors. But only a handful can be said to have what it takes to be a good ambassador. Many of them go abroad to serve themselves and not the nation. A few years ago when I visited Argentina and called on our embassy in Buenos Aires, I met a junior staff there who told me the Ambassador had been absent from his post for over three months. Again when I served in Ankara, Turkey, in 1975, with concurrent accreditation to Iran, I could not understand the reason for having our diplomatic mission in Ankara at the time. Subsequently, I learnt that the two missions were opened to accommodate Brigadier Kurubo. When I went to Teheran, I discovered that Kurubo was not even known in the Foreign Ministry. Our Mission in Teheran was being run by a junior attaché who had not been paid for six months. I duly recommended that one of the two embassies be closed as our residual interest there in those days did not warrant us opening full-fledged embassies there. In fact, I requested a posting back to Lagos after only a year in Ankara.
Many critics of our foreign representation have pointed out to the lack of resources in running our missions abroad. This is, in fact, the critical issue. For lack of funds most of our missions cannot be run properly and professionally. The Foreign Service is costly and cannot be run on shoe strings as is the case now. For instance, the total MFA budget in 2009 was only US$306 million. South Africa’s budget was US $702 million. In 2010, while Nigeria’s Foreign Service budget fell to $232 million, South Africa’s was US$634. In 2012, our MFA budget was only US$317 million that of South Africa was US$720 million. Yet, South Africa’s GDP is only a third of Nigeria’s. As acknowledged by the MFA publication of 2012, ‘Our diplomatic missions continue to suffer needless and painful embarrassments arising from disconnection of utility services, ejection of staff from rented apartments, ejection of children from schools for failure to pay school fees and arrears of salaries of the diplomatic and other staff’. In 1989, after verification, the Federal Government settled an accumulated debt of $100 in our diplomatic missions. In 2005, a similar exercise took place with the missions being bailed out again.
It is up to the government to determine how many diplomatic missions our country should have. A preponderant number of these diplomatic missions are in Africa, our primary area of strategic and political interest. It will be difficult to close any of them. The number and size of our diplomatic missions should reflect the government’s foreign policy objectives and strategies. Nigeria’s global responsibilities and obligations have continued to increase. Yet, in our present challenging financial situation, with oil revenue falling steadily, and the GDP growth rate projected to decline this year to roughly 2.5 per cent, it is obvious that something concrete and urgent must be done to reduce the cost of governance. As far as MFA is concerned, it is now inevitable, though regrettable, that the number of our foreign missions should be reduced. But it is going to be a difficult exercise. We have over 125 foreign diplomatic missions in Abuja. Exchange of embassies and ambassadors is reciprocal. Foreign countries from which we withdraw our embassies will not take kindly to it. They will almost certainly retaliate by closing their own diplomatic missions too.
