Nigeria: What it Really Means to Act in the National Interest, By Olu Fasan

There’s hardly any Nigerian who will disagree with the idea of acting in the national interest. Indeed, one would have to be an unrepentant renegade to say that he or she won’t act in the national interest. Yet, truth be told, very few people actually act in the national interest in Nigeria. Why? Well, first, there are those who have their own vested interests that run contrary to the national interest. Second, even though the concept of the national interest should be an objective reality, it often founders on the bedrock of subjectivism.

For instance, those in power may define the national interest in a way that serves their narrow interests. In that case, the national interest becomes subject to the predilections or perceptions of the incumbent leaders, even though those predilections or perceptions may not best serve the national interest. At the level of the citizens, the national interest may mean different things to different people. For instance, what is a vital issue to some people, e.g. fairness and equity, may be a peripheral issue to others.

So, the starting point in any discussion about the national interest is to agree what the national interest is or should be, and what it really means to act in the national interest. Unless we have those basic understandings, every talk about the national interest and about acting in the national interest would be shallow. So, what’s the national interest? Traditionally, the idea of the national interest is linked to national security and national survival, as well as economic wellbeing and social cohesion. Thus, anything that threatens the national security and survival of a country, and its economic prosperity and social cohesion, cannot be in the national interest. However, the national interest is not unrestrained nationalism, based on a sentimental loyalty towards one’s country, whereby one denies the realities in one’s country and condemns any foreigner or, indeed, any local critic who points out those realities.

Take, for instance, President Donald Trump’s recent allegation of “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. It is not in the national interest to deny that what had happened in the Middle-Belt over the past several years amounted to genocidal attacks on the Christian communities, which is the language prominent Middle-Belt leaders had themselves used to describe the situation in the region. So, denying that reality is not in the national interest, and if Trump’s broadside against Nigeria was intended to put pressure on the Nigerian government to tackle the problem, then it should be welcome. However, when President Trump threatened to send the US military to Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” if attacks against Christians continue, it is in the national interest for all Nigerians to unite and tell him that he cannot invade Nigeria and violate its sovereignty under any pretext.

Of course, widespread human rights violations, such as genocidal attacks, have become a legitimate justification for foreign interventions, often on humanitarian grounds. Yet, acting in the national interest, we should unite in telling President Trump that he should support Nigeria to overcome the challenges of non-state violence and ungoverned spaces instead of asking his country’s Department of War to “prepare for possible action” to attack Nigeria in a way that “will be fast, vicious and sweet”. Acting in the national interest means reacting as every group does in the face of real and present danger. So, while not denying the reality on the ground, the national interest requires that we speak with one voice against any threat of external attack on Nigeria.

But the national interest is not only invoked when a country faces an external threat. It must also be invoked when a country faces internal challenges that could endanger its unity, stability and progress. After all, a country’s external situation is an extension of its domestic circumstances; what is left unaddressed at home always morphs into challenges abroad. Unfortunately, Nigeria is a country prone to ignoring festering problems, even ignoring them when they are too big to deny. Yet, acting in the national interest requires both government and citizens to unite in tackling the survival, vital, major and even seemingly peripheral issues that are blocking Nigeria’s progress.

To be sure, the best way to understand and safeguard a country’s national interest is to undertake what’s known in the business world as SWOT Analysis, namely: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. A country’s strengths become opportunities to be exploited, and a country’s weaknesses, if not tackled, can become threats to its survival. Thus, acting in the national interest means recognising Nigeria’s strengths and turning them into opportunities for advancing the country’s progress, and recognising Nigeria’s weaknesses and preventing them from becoming threats to its survival and prosperity. So, what would a SWOT analysis tell us about Nigeria? Let’s start with strengths.

Everyone knows that Nigeria is a hugely endowed country, both in human talent and natural resources. Furthermore, although hardly recognised as such, Nigeria’s diversity is also its great strength. Taken together, these strengths – human talent, natural resources and diversity – are opportunities that could be harnessed to transform Nigeria into a truly great nation. Unfortunately, however, successive Nigerian governments and leaders, failing to act in the national interest, have dissipated Nigeria’s strengths, wasting its human talent and natural resources, and mismanaging its diversity. Consequently, what should have been opportunities for progress have become weaknesses that pose existential threats to Nigeria’s unity, stability and progress.

Truth is, Nigeria faces monumental problems: from widespread insecurity to massive unemployment, from acute poverty and inequality to endemic corruption. But these problems stem from two fundamental weaknesses. First, Nigeria is not a true nation; second, it is not a true state. Nigeria is not a true nation because it lacks the critical ingredients of nationhood, namely, a strong sense of common identity and unity. And Nigeria is not a true state because, although it has all the trappings and formal qualities of sovereign independent statehood, it lacks the political will, institutional authority and organised power to tackle insecurity and provide socio-economic welfare.

In a sense, Nigeria is what the American author Robert Kaplan described as a “quasi-state”, a state in name only, because it lacks state capacity, the critical ingredient of genuine statehood. These weaknesses – weak nationhood and weak statehood – have festered for so long and now pose existential threats to Nigeria’s survival and prosperity. But acting in the national interest requires all of us, leaders and citizens alike, to put all parochial interests aside and focus on nation-building and state-building, without which Nigeria can never fulfil its true potential. That’s the clarion call!

In the National Interest: A Book for Our Time

Dear Reader, talking about acting in the national interest, I am delighted to share with you something close to my heart – my new book on the same subject, titled In the National Interest: The Road to Nigeria’s Political, Economic and Social Transformation. The book will be launched next week, on Thursday, November 20, at the MUSON Centre, Lagos. The book is available on Amazon and distributed in Nigeria by, among others, RovingHeights Bookstore (+2348078972157). For any inquiries about the book and/or the book launch, please contact me on WhatsApp: +447472 014704.