Nigeria's Multilateral Policy and Regional Order of West Africa in the Post-Cold War International System

Abstract

The article assesses the role of Nigeria in the international order of West Africa. It seeks to establish the nexus between Nigeria‟s multilateral policy and international order of West Africa. This is premised on the ongoing instability in the region as a whole. As Middle East, Gulf Region, and East and South-East Asia regions are always assured of the United States' presence in the event of any conflict or instability, such assurance is not available in West Africa.West Africa is a home of 16 independent countries in the African continent. The presence of two principal colonial masters (Britain and France) has been greatly noticeable in the region from colonial days and the region generally has received scanty attention in the international order literature. Unlike the Gulf and the Middle East region, the West Africa region is unipolar in nature and it is obvious the most important actor maintaining international order is Nigeria. Given the presence of two erstwhile colonial masters in the region, the region becomes more complicated and the assertiveness of Nigeria's hegemonic role cannot complete without an historical and contemporary analysis of events in the region, most especially in relation to Nigeria's multilateral policy. This is the essence of this paper and it endeavours to produce a theoretical framework pertaining to future direction of international politics of the region and the role a regional power like Nigeria plays in maintaining peace and order. This is expedient considering the dwindling presence of global powers in regional affairs which implicitly promotes and supports the role of pivotal state in the regional order. The article adopted textual mining and latent content analysis in interpreting the existing documents, newspapers and articles while manual transcription is employed for interview conducted.