Rethinking Nigeria’s Afrocentric Foreign Policy and the Politics of the Technical Aid Corps Programme

Abstract

Nigeria’s Afrocentric foreign policy posture has given the country worldwide visibility and recognition as a putative regional hegemon with the right to speak and be listened to on African issues. To further drive the vision, Nigeria in 1987 established the Technical Aid Corps Scheme as a platform to provide technical support to the least developed countries in Africa, Caribbean and pacific (ACP) based on request. The scheme is designed around four main objectives namely: to share Nigeria’s Know-how and expertise with other African, Caribbean and pacific countries; to give assistance on the basis of assessed and perceived needs of the recipient countries; to promote cooperation and understanding between Nigeria and recipient countries; and to facilitate meaningful contacts between the youths of Nigeria and those of the recipient countries. Even though the program has been implemented for about 35 years, very few scholars have shown interest in finding out the level of implementation of the program and its impact on the achievement of Nigeria’s national interest. This study has been designed to bridge this gap in the literature. The central question we intend to interrogate in this study is: has the implementation of the Technical Aid Corps scheme enhanced the achievement of Nigeria’s foreign policy objectives in Africa? In other words, what are the gains and pains of the Technical Aid scheme? The study was anchored on the manifest destiny theory of foreign policy and data was generated from secondary sources. The findings revealed that Nigeria has creditably used the Afrocentric foreign platform to fulfill her manifest destiny to lead and speak for Africa. We therefore argued that the call to scrap the policy is illogical, ill-conceived and myopic. In conclusion, for Nigeria to remain the “Giant of Africa “, the continuity of the Afrocentric foreign policy is a desideratum.