A Review of Diplomatic Soldiering: The Conduct of Nigerian Foreign Policy, 1975-1979 By Emeka Esogbue

A Review of Diplomatic Soldiering: The Conduct of Nigerian Foreign Policy, 1975-1979

By Emeka Esogbue

Book: Diplomatic Soldiering: The Conduct of Nigerian Foreign Policy, 1975-1979

Author: Major-General Joe Garba

Publisher: Spectrum Books Limited

Year of publication: 1987

Revised: 1991

Reprinted: 2015

Reviewer: Emeka Esogbue

It is a 268-page book divided into 12 chapters that are all titled. The book analytically touches on diplomacy and Nigerian foreign policy within West Africa in particular and the African continent in general but most importantly, the personal experiences of the Author, Major-General Joe Garba, a renowned Nigerian soldier and seasoned Diplomat who was to incidentally serve under the regimes of General Yakubu Gowon, General Murtala Muhammed and General Olusegun Obasanjo, three Heads of State of the Nigerian state at one time or the other.

The book opens with a preface, acknowledgment and also contains a prologue that enriches what is to be expected by readers. It is also deepened with epilogue that summarily serves as a reminder to the readers while it closes with several appendices to support earlier arguments established by the Author, Major-General Joe Garba. The style of writing utilized by the Author is purely narrative, making the book easy and comprehensible to the readers, some of who may not be professionally familiar with diplomacy and foreign policy language.

In chapter one, which is titled, “Learning on the Job”, the Author at this time, the Commander of the Brigade of Guards relieves his experience as the newly appointed Head of the Ministry of External Affairs. His experience hints on his visit to the Ministry which he described as his second ever. He soon took over Joe Iyalla who was the Permanent Secretary at the time.

As typical of candidates who receive appointments of this nature, he soon received his very first briefing from General Yakubu Gowon, the Head of State who directed him to hold an urgent consultation with the His Excellency Oumarou G Youssofu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Niger Republic whom the author described as his old, with whom he grew up. The issues for discussion bothered on cows and a broken bridge and the 1973 drought that had killed over 50% of Niger’s cattle, causing Niger to place embargo on cattle export to Nigeria.

Also in this chapter, the author condemned Gowon’s style of leadership which he described as ‘personalization of Nigeria’s Diplomacy’. According to him, this style nearly resulted in Gowon’s sending of Nigerian troop to Niger to forestall a coup due to his personal friendship with President Hamani Diori of that country. The Author did not see reasons why troops of the Nigerian nation should be risked to serve the personal ambition of Gowon and Niger.

This chapter also touches on the diplomatic argument between Nigeria and Togo on which of these two countries ECOWAS headquarters should be situated. Despite Nigeria’s status as the chief financier of ECOWAS, paying a third of its budget, the Togolese leader had argued the situation of the headquarters of the Community in Togo, his home country while Yakubu Gowon differed from this view. It therefore resulted in an argument between the two Heads of State from the two West African countries.

The Author also points out that incidentally, it was during the Gowon’s visit to Togo to attend the OAU summit that the news of his removal reached him even though he was a high-profile member of his cabinet. Consequently, General Yakubu Gowon was offered asylum where he eventually spent two weeks before choosing to move to London where he remained. General Murtala Muhammed emerged as Nigeria’s new Head of State, replacing the Gowon regime.

By the time chapter two of this book opened, the author had settled effectively on his new job, something he was initially grappling with. Much to the surprise of his readers, he personally related his preference for Murtala over Gowon basing his argument on the latter having started to demand an activist foreign policy because Nigeria must be visible in the world to be reckoned as relevant in the international system. This made the author to engage in frequent travels.

Here, Obasanjo who would succeed Murtala as the nation’s Head of State comes into the diplomatic picture for the first time in this book. He is introduced to readers and also described by the Author as one with strong and notable anti-colonial credential who had written a thesis at the Royal College of Defence Studies, contrasting the paucity of British economic assistance to Nigeria with what the British were gaining from the Nigeria economically. For this reason, the Author therefore considered Obasanjo a radical of some sort with radical ideas of foreign policy for Nigeria.     

Change of Nigeria’s foreign policy towards other African countries which characterized the shift from Gowon to Murtala made the author to remark that “foreign policy does not wait for a report”. The author had warned readers that “it was clear from the beginning that Nigeria’s foreign policy would be characterized by a new sense of direction especially in Africa” soon, President Eyadema arrived Nigeria where he received a chilly welcome as his executive plane touched nearly a deserted airport.

Another African Head of State to visit the nation at this time was Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada who was in the country in 1976 on his way to Liberia. It was within this period that Murtala lobbied Dr. Elia into the International Court of Justice at The Hague despite the closure of nominations. This was also against Justice “Daddy” Onyema, the incumbent who was also seeking re-election and in fact had also secured support from majority of western countries. However, Murtala died in 1976, Nigeria’s foreign policy did not lose its dynamism. Obasanjo was to take over as the Head of State.

Chapter three of the book explains Angola’s crisis and Nigeria’s reasons for supporting MPLA which it did at the time while Chapter four which explains good neighbourliness among the West African countries with the author not surprised that there was tension in the West African region. According to him, this was expected within the region so politically and economically diverse. He identified colonial creation of these countries as the problem. Colonial heritage, according to him invited differences in ideological outlook and added to this is the different European languages that these countries speak being English, French and Portuguese. One of the sad episodes conveyed was the fight that nearly broke out between Eyadema and Kerekou in the presence of Obasanjo.      

Chapter five discusses the challenge posed by Rhodesia which the author claimed was Nigeria’s most important preoccupation during his tenure. By the end of the period of search for peace, Garba was no longer Foreign Minister so there was little he could do to help the situation especially as he had claimed that with Obasanjo being a stickler for procedure, he could not walk to him to offer any help in this regard. He therefore returned to the Army. However, it was unfortunate that the Nigerian delegation was insulted by Nyerere who at the time had assumed full command. There was the struggle against apartheid in chapter six of the book.

Apartheid is expressed as one issue on which African countries consistently united in condemning. It was the claim of the author that African countries never wavered as least verbally. The author recalls that the issue of apartheid was first raised in the United Nations by Republic of India in 1948 and since then no other issue had occupied the time and energies of that world body except, perhaps, the Middle East and Korean crises. At the conference later held in Nigeria, several recommendations were issued against the apartheid regime of South Africa. This was the testimony of Africans towards sacrificing to right the wrong in southern Africa.

In chapter seven, the author reports the 1976 OAU Foreign Ministers and Budgetary meeting, the second ever that he would attend and the attendant crisis. He recalled that the meeting came to a standstill for two days following the verbal warfare between the Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, Kifle Wadajo and the leader of Somali delegation, Ahmed Mohammed over the independence of Afas and Isas, otherwise known as Djibouti. While both persons support the independence of the country, they differed violently on how the independence should be achieved and traded insults.

This chapter also presented the Kenyan crisis. However, the most disturbing was the Kenya-Uganda border which threw up the Israeli ’90 Minutes at Entebbe’. The author would travel to Uganda and later reporting that worried Idi Amin knelt on his knees pleading with him mainly over the closure of Kenya-Uganda border which was doing economic damage to Uganda. Eventually, Amin’s downfall would come though at the exit of the Author as foreign Minister.          

Chapter eight opens with the Author’s remark that African politics would regrettably continue to be buffeted by the global confrontation between the United States of America and the Soviet. He reached this conclusion from his experience as Nigeria’s Foreign Minister who had attended bilateral and multilateral meetings. Similarly, in chapter nine, readers are given the idea that no independent African country can escape from the web of relationship spun with Europe since the fifteenth century. “Independence may have come but economic inter-dependence persists what the situation”, he emphasizes.

The Author went ahead to explain that when Nigeria achieved her independence in October, 1960 from the British, it was through peaceful constitutional conferences rather than armed liberation struggle. This according to the Author is responsible for the warm, even sentimental feeling among Nigerians toward Britain. He buttressed this argument with Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact to which the students of University of Ibadan protested. In furtherance, he recalled that the Nigerian-Britain relationship was cordial until in 1967 when the Nigerian Civil War broke out. At that time, Nigeria Government expected Britain to support her however, what the country got was sustained propaganda mounted against it both in the British Parliament and the British society at large. There was also the case of initial refusal of Britain to sell arms to Nigeria. It is noteworthy that after the war, relations improved as did with all countries.

Chapter ten discusses Nigeria in international organizations. The Author sees the United Nations to which Nigeria was admitted on October 7, 1960 as an impressive world theatre. He describes the theatre of the global body as a pure theatre with a collection of several thousand professional actors otherwise called diplomats with other professionals who play the role of directors and producers over which presides the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Chapter eleven describes the relations between Black Africa and the Arabs. The Author explains that it was the Arab-Israeli confrontation that compelled Nasser of Egypt to seek relations in the sub-Saharan region. However, he would regret that the matter of Middle East crisis began to dominate the OAU sessions with Palestine Liberation Organization succeeding in attending one of the OAU meetings as observers. Nonetheless, the Author did not appreciate the Palestine problem dominating African meetings especially when Africans were not directly concerned.  

Chapter twelve which serves as conclusion bears the view that a country of Nigeria’s size and potential cannot formulate and execute a credible foreign policy for the future without first laying a solid political and economic foundation at home. This assertion seems to be infinitely valuable to the Nigerian foreign policy formulators beyond the period of publication of the book.

This is followed with interesting epilogue and appendices, some of which submit reports and exchanges from the diplomatic front.