Buhari to prune down Nigeria’s foreign missions

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered
a review of Nigeria’s foreign missions with an aim of
pruning down the number and improving the quality
of services rendered.
To this end, a presidential Committee would soon be
formed do carry out a holistic exercise on the foreign
missions.
At the moment, the country has a total 119 foreign
missions which president Buhari said would be too
expensive to maintain due to the economic
downturn.
The president who gave the charge after he was
briefed on the activities of Ministry of Foreign Affairs
by the Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Bulus Lolo
and other officials of the Ministry, President Buhari
said that it would be counter-productive operating
missions all over the world “with dilapidated facilities
and demoralized staff” when the need for some of
the missions was questionable.
“Let’s keep only what we can manage. We can’t afford
much for now. There’s no point pretending,” he said.
The President also called for the record of former
government officials and other persons who were
still in possession of diplomatic and official passports
after leaving office, saying that his administration will
take necessary action against them.
“Something has to be done so that we can get back
our respectability as a country. Some people carry
official passports and get involved in all sorts of
negative acts. We need to do something about it,”
President Buhari said.
Earlier, Ambassador Lolo told President Buhari that
the challenges facing the Ministry included the
absence of a Foreign Service Commission, poor
funding of foreign missions, policy inconsistencies
and training deficiencies, among others.
In an interview with State House Correspondents
after the meeting, Lolo gave broader light on the
activities of the mission and why it was necessary to
prune down the number of embassies abroad.
He also stated the need to review the country’s
foreign policy, saying that the last time a
comprehensive report was done on that was 29 years
ago.
He said “I underline the fact that the activities of the
ministries and largely outside the country is 75
percent outside the country and 25 percent domestic
that even though we do 25 percent of our work at
home, foreign policy derives from domestic policy,
there is a close nexus between country’s domestic
and foreign policy.
“Our activities are handled by our missions abroad
because the Ministry’s functions cover relations of
country’s formulations and management of Nigeria’s
foreign policy, getting and managing relations with
other countries and all of these now crystalize into
what opportunities there are and challenges.
“In the course of the briefing, I took Mr. President
through the structure of the Ministry, mentioned the
parastatals that are supervised by the Ministry, talked
about the personnel of the Ministry and you know
the bulk of them have the ambition of becoming
ambassadors and we also talked about the state of
our embassies abroad. All of these in the context of
what Nigeria aspires to be at home, in the sub-
region, in the continent and around the globe.
“Mr. President asked the Ministry to be realistic in
terms of our representation abroad. We have 119
Missions. He asked the questions whether we need to
have that number or we rationalize based on our
capacity. Right now, the economy is looking down. We
are trying to revive and revamp. It is a matter of
time.
Presidential directive
The specific directive that he has given is that a
committee be formed to look at the whole issue of
our representation abroad, the size and the number
of missions on whether or not the number should
remain the same or we do something about those
numbers.
Any Time frame?
“As soon as possible. Not specific time frame but he
said the sooner, the better. Action needs to be
taken.”
On the review of foreign policy direction
“I mentioned bringing the outcome of the retreat
that was organised by the Ministry only last weekend
to assess our delivery, capability and mechanism and
maybe suggesting that the time has come. In the last
comprehensive report was done in 1986. By next
year, it will be 30 and I believe that even in the life
of a child, you look back and ask, are you going in the
right direction?
“The fundamentals of our foreign policy as defined by
the objective of principles are not only sound but
relevant. What changes is the nuance that
governments and regimes bring from time to time. I
took him through the themes of different regimes
and evolution of Nigerian government policy starting
with 1975 when the slogan was “Africa has come of
age”.
“The President when he was in power 1983-1985
came up with the concentric circle concept. General
Babangida as President from 1985 until he stepped
outside came with two things: Concept of Medium
powers as well as economic diplomacy.
Then under the late Yar’Adua, we dealt with citizen
diplomacy and the last regime came with
transformation agenda. We are now looking at them
and crystalizing the priority of the present
administration that has articulated security, the
economy and the fight against corruption. All these
will be important to our ministry and the mission
abroad to take outside and explain to the rest of the
world.
On the Effect of cutting down Missions abroad
“It is a function of interest and capacity. I believe
what the president was saying to us is that we should
cut our coat according to our material and not
according to our size.”