Nnamdi Obasi
\nSenior Adviser, Nigeria<\/p>\n
On at least two of these occasions, he apparently visited France for medical care, though no official explanation was offered. Officials at Nigeria\u2019s foreign ministry say Nigerian-French relations have grown stronger under Tinubu\u2019s administration, but there is no evidence of a shift in foreign partnership from Nigeria\u2019s traditional friends in the U.S. and Britain toward France. (Nigeria\u2019s foreign policy elite are generally wary of France, due to its support of the secessionist Biafra in the late 1960s, its opposition to formation of ECOWAS in the 1970s and its continuing hegemonic influence over its former colonies in West Africa.) Yet Tinubu\u2019s repeated visits to Paris, and official silence about the purpose of some of the trips, have helped create the impression that he is taking instructions from France.
\nTinubu\u2019s miscalculation in responding to the Niger coup may not have cost him much domestic support, since foreign policy is not a major issue for the citizenry, but it has certainly earned him no praise. On one hand, in northern Nigeria, many analysts attribute his initial hard line on the Niger coup to his not reaching out to knowledgeable northern leaders who would have offered him better guidance. On the other hand, in the south, analysts say ECOWAS\u2019s inability to follow through on its early threat of military intervention has made Tinubu (as the bloc\u2019s current leader) appear weak. Worse still, beyond Nigeria, Tinubu\u2019s failure to act has sent a signal that he and ECOWAS can bark but not bite. Some worry that the perception of an enfeebled ECOWAS under Nigeria\u2019s leadership could embolden military adventurers in other West African countries as well as the Russia-backed Africa Corps, the successor to the notorious Wagner Group mercenaries in the region.
\nThe tumult in ECOWAS is, at least in part, a reflection of Nigeria\u2019s diminished influence in West Africa. Nigeria\u2019s influence has been slipping for over a decade, as the country has grappled with the security challenges and economic malaise that emerged under the presidencies of Umaru Yar\u2019Adua and Goodluck Jonathan (2007-2015) but were significantly aggravated during the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s lethargic presidency (2015-2023).
\nBuhari\u2019s government struggled on multiple axes. It was unable to lay out, and rally the bloc to, a strategic vision for regional development and security, being preoccupied with, if not overwhelmed by, several domestic security challenges, including the jihadist insurgency in the North East, banditry in the North West, herder-farmer tensions, especially in the North Central zone, and deepening insecurity associated with the Biafra secessionist agitation in the South East.
\nEmbattled at home, Nigeria also sometimes pursued its own priorities with apparently scant regard for collective interests. It only reluctantly conceded to working with ECOWAS members Niger and Benin, along with Cameroon and Chad, in forming the MNJTF to deal with the jihadist group, Boko Haram. From August 2019 to December 2020, it closed its land borders with neighbours \u2013 Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Niger \u2013 in a bid to curb smuggling of produce, firearms and refined petroleum products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nnamdi Obasi Senior Adviser, Nigeria On at least two of these occasions, he apparently visited France for medical care, though no official explanation was offered. Officials at Nigeria\u2019s foreign ministry say Nigerian-French relations have grown stronger under Tinubu\u2019s administration, but there is no evidence of a shift in foreign partnership from Nigeria\u2019s traditional friends in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21540"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21614,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21540\/revisions\/21614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}