Sports as an Instrument of Foreign Policy Under the Military Rule in Nigeria: 1976-1996

Abstract

The importance and popularity of sports among the nations of the world is huge. Sports are among the few common denominators for all the nations of the world irrespective of their respective political ideologies and religious inclinations. Through sports, enemies in political and ideological realms can compete between and among each other in an atmosphere of peace. Over the years, world leaders have used sports as an instrument of foreign policy. They do that in both positive and negative ways. Sports are deployed positively when they are used to boost friendship or to support a noble cause and they are used negatively when they are deployed as an instrument of sanctions. This paper shows how sports were used as an instrument of foreign policy in Nigeria by three military regimes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida and Sanni Abacha. Olusegun Obasanjo's regime pulled out Nigeria's Olympic contingents from participating in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. Ten years later, the regime of Ibrahim Babangida led other Anglophone countries to boycott the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland; and in 1996 General Sanni Abacha stopped the Super Eagles from defending the title they won in the previous edition of the African Cup of Nations. Details of these boycotts and their political implications are discussed in this paper.