Former Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi has recounted his biggest disappointment with his former principal and military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB).
According to the prolific diplomacy expert who celebrated his 80th birthday on Tuesday, 4th January, 2022, his biggest disappointment with Babangida was the manner he relieved him of his duties as the then Minister of external affairs in 1987. Before his appointment in 1985, Akinyemi had served as the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) from 1975 until 1983.
Explaining the circumstances that played out prior to his sacking, Akinyemi said he was “sacrificed” by Babangida to satisfy the top echelon of the Nigerian military.
He said that some top generals in the military during the regime of Babangida perceived him to be strong-willed and “problematic” in his pursuant of some policies during his time as the minister.
The eminent professor said the ‘top officials’ in the Babangida’s military government were particularly not comfortable with his creation of “concert of medium powers” policy.
One of Akinyemi’s profound foreign policy initiatives was the creation of the concert of medium powers in world politics. The concert of medium powers sought bigger roles for about sixteen countries including Nigeria, which were regional powers, or which exercised a significant amount of regional influence. The countries were expected to act together in mediatory capacity in pressing global conflict-situations as well as act as a bridge between competing interests in the international system.
However, Akinyemi, who spoke during an interview with the Arise TV, monitored by The New Diplomat said the idea was perceived too ambitious and unfortunately led to his exit from the Babangida cabinet.
He added that had the initiative grown to become fully established, Nigeria would have been better positioned to become one of the world powers.
In his words, “President Babangida was sitting on an institution that put him there, that they had to reckon with. And whenever anybody’s position of performance become controversial that they started to threaten the cohesion of that institution, well it is the person who needed to go out and be sacrificed
“And I must say, which is very unusual, he gave me six months notice that he was going to remove me as a minister, six months. And I didn’t allow that to affect me for the six months. And on the eve of the six months, they called me in to say goodbye, to say farewell, and to say, anytime I want to talk to him, anytime I want to meet him, he would be available. So that was a disappointment for me.
“Well, IBB once said publicly so, I’m not going to reveal whatever he didn’t say. But somebody asked him that question. And he said, I understand what Professor Akinyemi was trying to do in the ministry, but not too many of his colleagues understood what was the motivation and understood the complexity of the policy. He understood the need for the concert of medium powers. He understood the fact that Nigeria was acting below its capability. And that there is capability for Nigeria to… I’m sorry to put it this way… to be a world power like India,” the elder statesman said.
Akinyemi continued: “India is no longer a regional power, India is a world power and that Nigeria had that capability intellectually, economically and what have you. But that was the divisions within us that continue to derail Nigeria. So he (Babangida) bought into my attempt at creating a concert of medium power that will drive the Nigerian presence in the world. But not all members of the top echelon of the military actually bought into that. If you read some of the books that have been written on ECOMOG, for example, you will find out that the military, the top generals of the military did not really, not all of them, cooperated with IBB in Liberia and in Sierra Leone.
“And yet today, ECOMOG even if it’s not recognised in Nigeria, abroad, when you talk to scholars abroad, it was just like that will be the first time you will have an African Power not driven by a foreign European power, achieving the restoration of regional order, and that in some of the military institutions in the United States, in Britain, they are studying the ECOMOG as an institution for peacekeeping. Not a UN operation but one that is autotomous to Africa. And really when you peel like you are peeling an onion, when you peel the outer layer you’ll find Nigeria there.
“Those were things which I shared with them and not all members of the military did and if the echelon of the military then perceived the minister of foreign affairs as being problematic in the things that he tried to do and they approached him and told him to.. (pick between them) or it was me. The Americans and the British also, were not happy and were not comfortable with any foreign minister driven by the love of his own country. Margaret Thatcher, loved ministers driven by love for Britain. And Ronald Reagan, loved people driven by love for America, but they didn’t like ministers driven by love for their own country,” he added.
