Pruning down of diplomatic missions

President Muhammadu Buhari, while being briefed recently by the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bulus Lolo, disclosed that his administration would review Nigerian foreign missions with the aim of pruning down the numbers and improving the quality of services rendered.

Nigeria currently has a total of 119 foreign missions and spends N34 billion to run the missions. This, according to the president, is unacceptable since there is no point in operating missions all over the world “with dilapidated facilities and demoralised staff”. “Let’s keep only what we can manage. We can’t afford much for now. There’s no point in pretending,” he said.

In light of the above, the president said a committee would be formed to determine the number of essential missions Nigeria needs to maintain abroad so that appropriate standards and quality can be maintained.

While we commend President Buhari’s resolve to run a lean and smart diplomatic missions regime, especially in the context of the declining prices of crude oil in the international market and the consequent decline in the government revenue, we are, however, compelled to advise the government to be cautious and consult with foreign policy and diplomacy experts so that it does not take an action that will be detrimental to the national interest. While on the face of it this appears to be the best option for the country, on closer examination, it is fraught with many difficulties and complications. As the former minister of foreign affairs and seasoned Nigerian diplomat, late Gbenga Ashiru, contends, this approach is a desperate solution that fails to address the fundamental problem of inadequate funding and the need to promote and defend Nigeria’s national interests in a changing world. This approach, according to Ashiru, has never worked as Nigeria has only tended to open and close missions in a cyclical movement that creates more problems than solutions.

Besides, as any knowledgeable diplomat will confirm, the cost of closing and winding down missions is far greater than re-opening them. In fact, the financial, not to talk about the reputational, cost of closing down a mission is far greater, both in the short and long run, than any savings that may accrue from the closure. There are unintended debts, liabilities and bad faith to incur due to untimely breach of contracts, and restitution of trust could take decades. What is more, by closing down missions, we damage relations that have taken years to build.

Moreover, at a time that Nigeria is seeking to reassert its pre-eminent position as the continental and regional leader and is also seeking to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the country needs more friends and diplomatic spread than ever before. Shutting down diplomatic missions is not the best way to make friends and assure them that we are capable of shouldering the challenges that permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council entails. A nation with such global ambition with its nationals spread all over the world cannot be shrinking its diplomatic and consular presence abroad. To begin to shrink rather than make new friends and consolidate existing relationships will be counter-productive to Nigeria’s national interests.

In the same light, Nigeria’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, Umunna Humphrey Orjiako, argues that “no actors in the field of diplomacy are likely to take a country seriously if the volume and reach of its foreign policy fluctuate with the quantity and price of crude oil it sells in the world market”.

Our thinking is that the government should constitute a committee of experts to advise it on the best course of action to take regarding the fate of our foreign missions. Probably, the solution may lie in running ‘Smart Missions’ consisting of an ambassador and one or two other staff only rather than the previous practice of overloading the place with staff that do little or nothing. Already, such missions are present even in Nigeria. It is a model the government may want to explore.