Abstract
This paper surveys the myriad challenges that confront and frustrate the fulfillment of Nigeria’s diplomatic visions and missions overseas. There is a wide-spread understanding and acceptance that Nigeria’s foreign and diplomatic missions operate below expectation. This is more so when comparisonis made between Nigeria’s diplomatic performance and those of the developed and well-ordered societies of the world. Nigeria’s foreign policy through its missions abroad is expected to improve the lots of its citizens living overseas, bring the country’s national and domestic interests to the stage of actualization, and project the country’s image as good before the comity of nations etc. To these expectations, the Nigerian state and its diplomacy leave much to be desired. Among other explanations for this failure of diplomacy are infiltration of the diplomatic profession by non-careerists who by their unprofessionalism, have shown to be foreigners in the foreign service; wanton corruption by the political class which frustrates foreign services; inadequacy of financial resources needed for role performance leading to embarrassments and difficulty in the timely payments of bills etc. The paper concludes that it is both imperative and compelling for the executive government of Nigeria to wake up to these challenges as a matter of urgency, if Nigeria must play an active role that befits its status in international affairs.
Highlights
There exists a nexus between National Interest, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy
Many more are true of diplomacy, and what diplomacy through a country’s diplomatic missions do for a country, the question is, do these apply to Nigeria and its diplomatic missions abroad? Taking the position that Nigeria’s diplomatic and Foreign Service punches below the target, this paper concentrates on the issues that haunt Nigeria’s diplomatic practice, and debilitates its performance
The government of the day should deliberately select the suitable dramatis personae that will effectively pull the strings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its diplomatic missions in the diaspora
Summary
There exists a nexus between National Interest, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy. It goes without contestation that every state acting like a player on the international stage, has a number of goals and aims it deems as core values, and which it pursues and desires to actualize These goals otherwise known as national interests inform what plans and decisions that must be taken by the government of the day, as a vehicle that will necessarily transport and transform the articulated goals and interests into living and concrete realities. Diplomatic missions are extremely important in the world in projecting the power and influence of a country They facilitate, as Berridge had said, the realization of the national objectives of modern states, and “cultivate the friendship of notable actors especially the benevolence of crucial actors in the world” [1].
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