Nigeria’s External Affairs Relations: A Historical Discourse

Abstract

Nigeria as a sovereign State has been involved in many relations with other
sovereign States across the world since independence. These relations are
conceived within the context of our foreign policy. It is necessary to appraise the impact of Nigeria’s foreign policy in relation with other States. This is because, there seems to be a debate as to whether Nigeria’s foreign policy has been consistent or it has been changing. Our contention in this work is to highlight the consistency of Nigeria with foreign policies. Using the decision-making theory as our model of analysis, this paper posits that there has been consistency in Nigeria’s external-affairs relations with other States and its focus is on Africa. And African issues are perceived to be germane. Although in our findings, there has been series of changes occasioned by different leadership which come and go with the imposition of their unique styles of leadership. This variation to a certain degree indicates lots of inconsistencies. This work therefore takes a historical discourse of the overall relations of Nigeria’s external affairs and
recommends that there is need to prevent a downward slide in Nigeria’s external affairs relations with other States.