THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF NIGERIA’S EXTERNAL RELATIONS: ASSESSING THE HISTORICAL IMPERATIVES

Abstract

This paper looks at the fundamental problems of Nigeria’s External Relations, with special emphasis on her historical experience of colonialism. It tried to establish a link between the Nigeria’s colonial experience and the challenges encountered over the years in her foreign policy articulation and implementation. Using the ‘Dependency Theory’, the paper identified ‘’The colonial experience’; Structural imbalance in Nigeria’s federal system and the Afro-centric philosophy of Nigerian leaders as the fundamental problems of Nigeria’s foreign policy. The paper argues that alongside the colonial experience which tied Nigeria’s economy to the Western capitalist economy, the inherited structural imbalance in Nigeria exacerbated ethnicity and hampered national cohesion thereby affecting Nigeria’s foreign policy negatively. Also, the paper highlighted the fact that Nigeria has spent more than she has gotten from her Afro-centric foreign policy posture. The paper therefore concludes that restructuring of the Nigerian state to make for changes in the political cum economic equations in such a way as to promote the nation’s core national values is the way to tackle Nigeria’s foreign policy challenges.