Aminu Wali, 79, was Nigeria's ambassador to China (2009 - 2014) before he was appointed foreign affairs minister by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014. Mr Wali had earlier served as Nigeria's permanent representative to the United Nations. In this interview, he speaks on challenges of managing foreign relations especially in times of crises and the politics of foreign aids and loans.

Excerpts:

PREMIUM TIMES: As a retired diplomat and former foreign minister, how do you assess Nigeria's current foreign policy thrust especially in the light of recent happening; xenophobic attacks in South Africa and recent altercation with Ghana?

Aminu Wali: Nigeria's diplomatic relations concerning global approach has been fairly consistent over a long period. But the cardinal principle of our foreign policy is, what is best for our country and also for Africa. That is the centrepiece of our foreign policy. But of course with a lot of happenings today, we have lost a lot of grounds as far as our impact internationally or even in Africa.



I know some years back, Nigeria was the country that was always reckoned with. Any action by any country, particularly in Africa, they always look towards Nigeria to see where it is heading. I think we have lost a lot of grounds in that respect. Maybe because of internal problems that we have, maybe we have not been able to give the importance that international relations require, as far as the current administration is concerned. I don't blame them because the problems are multiple. As a former foreign minister, I understand the principles that we always operate on. The type of foreign policy that we always want to pursue is to make sure that we drive maximum benefits out of our relationship with any country in the world.



As for problems you have mentioned in South Africa, these have always been there. It's been perennial in South Africa and China and some other Asian countries like Indonesia, Malaysia [and] Thailand. We have always had problems as far as relationship is concerned, not on normal day to day relationship with those countries but it's more consular issues relating to our nationals in those countries.

I am being brutally honest about it; wherever you hear of problems with our nationals in any of those countries that I have mentioned, you find out that the host authorities mainly are not to be blamed, because the kind of situation faced internally here is what is translated into those countries, particularly disregard for law and order.

A lot Nigerians do not understand these situations, they cover their acts [by saying] Nigerians are being messed up. First of all, you have to dig and find out why these things are happening. Some of us that are exposed in our missions have first-hand experience and understanding of the situation. For example, I was in China for four and a half years. I handled a lot of consular issues, 90 per cent of the problems were caused by our nationals. I'm being blunt.



I've tried to make lots of efforts to create some awareness on the traditional leadership of our people to understand and how to relate with their subjects to ensure they don't get involved in what they get involved in. that they should know how to treat their subjects and not start dishing out chieftaincy titles to people simply because they have money. First of all, you have to try to find out how they made the money.

A lot of our problems particularly in Asia is drug trading by our nationals. A lot of them in Asian prisons are still there. The same kind of problem is what is happening in South Africa.

PT: A lot of people believe all these are happening because Nigeria has lost the leadership that we used to exercise. Would you say we have lost that leadership?

Wali: That is very true, one would need to be honest in this respect. We used to lead the whole of Africa in terms of foreign policy, in pursuing the best interest of Africa. We used to be the 'spokesperson' of Africa, but we have lost that ground. Maybe because some of those countries have come up and they can stand on their own and fight for themselves. But the leader of the vanguard had always been Nigeria.

https://allafrica.com/stories/202009230579.html

Nah eh! No qualms

Not cool

no, blame me way dey ph