Tuggar, NIIA, Akinterinwa advocate new strategy for Nigeria’s foreign policy

Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Amb. Yusuf Tuggar, has urged ECOWAS member states to fully implement resolutions from the 94th Council of Ministers meeting in Abuja, stressing unity, economic integration and regional cooperation.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, has called for stronger intellectual engagement towards shaping the country’s foreign policy, describing critical debate and scholarship as essential to Nigeria’s global positioning.

Speaking virtually at the public presentation of the book ‘Strategic Autonomy as a Foreign Policy Grand Strategy for Nigeria: The Doctrine of 4-Ds as Definienda’, written by a former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Prof. Bola Akinterinwa, the minister said it was encouraging to see Nigeria’s diplomatic strategy subjected to forceful scrutiny and serious intellectual engagement,” which he noted had been lacking for some time.

According to Tuggar, the book contributes significantly to deepening understanding of Nigeria’s evolving role in the international system and enriches the growing body of knowledge on the country’s foreign policy.

He explained that Nigeria’s diplomacy had historically been shaped by its large population and its longstanding responsibility within Africa.

However, he noted that the changing global order, characterised by a multipolar and complex international system, required Nigeria to adopt a strategy that protects national sovereignty while expanding international partnerships.
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The‎ Director General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, said that the country must strengthen its economic, technological and diplomatic capacity to act independently in an increasingly complex global order, while describing the publication as a work of “encyclopaedic proportions,” suggesting that its scale and scope could easily have produced several volumes rather than a single book.
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The Chairman, Governing Council, NIIA, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, said that the event marked the introduction of the intellectual encapsulation of the ideas that have formed the foreign policy of Nigeria and the present moment.

He lauded Prof. Akinterinwa for writing a book that Nigerians would need for the intellectualisation of the nation’s foreign policy.