Nigeria and the Multipolar Turn

For much of the post-independence period, Nigerian foreign policy could rely on a relatively stable international order in which the major questions were settled elsewhere. That period has ended.

The emerging arrangement offers African states more counterparties and, with them, more leverage. It also offers more opportunities to be played against one another. Leverage is only useful to a state that knows precisely what it wants.

This is where clarity of national interest becomes indispensable. Partnerships should be assessed against a short and honest list: does this arrangement build domestic capability, does it leave us with an asset we control, and can we exit it without crisis?

Diplomacy conducted on those terms is less dramatic than summit photography, but it is considerably more durable.