Nigeria’s diplomacy without diplomats - John Onyeukwu

[John Onyeukwu]

Nigeria’s diplomacy without diplomats

A Foreign Policy Vacuum in an Era of Global Recalibration

 John Onyeukwu

 (Published on the Backpage of Business a.m newspaper on Wednesday August 6, 2026)

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recalled all Nigerian ambassadors and high commissioners, both career and non-career, effective September 2, 2023, the signal was clear: a reset of Nigeria’s foreign policy machinery. The envoys were given a 60-day winding-down period and were expected to formally disengage from their host governments and return to Nigeria by October 31, 2023. Almost two years (one year and nine months) later, that reset remains unfinished. Our diplomatic posts, strategic outposts of national interest, remain largely vacant. 

This prolonged vacancy is not just administrative lag; it is a strategic failure. At a time when global power blocs are re-aligning and multilateral institutions are being redefined, especially with the return of President Donald John Trump to the White House, Nigeria stands unrepresented, uncoordinated, and disturbingly silent. We are missing in action when presence matters most.

This prolonged delay carries deep consequences. Diplomacy, at its core, is not simply about presence; it is about presence with purpose. To withdraw ambassadors without timely replacements is to concede visibility, influence, and credibility on the global stage.

This raises existential questions about the Nigerian state’s understanding of its place in the world. What values do we claim to stand for if our voice is missing from the very tables where global norms, aid flows, and security partnerships are being debated and redrawn? Diplomacy is the ethical extension of national identity. A country that does not speak risks being spoken for.

The danger is sharper still. Africa is navigating rising insecurity, democratic backsliding, and renewed great power competition. ECOWAS is wobbling under coups and withdrawals, and Nigeria’s traditional leadership role is being eroded by smaller but better coordinated actors. With Trump’s return to the White House, the global rules are once again up for renegotiation. Alliances will shift. Climate commitments will be challenged. Multilateralism will be stress-tested. In such an unpredictable environment, absence is interpreted as irrelevance.

Economically, the void is no less damaging. Nigeria is courting foreign direct investment, chasing diaspora remittances, and talking up trade diplomacy. Yet the very embassies and high commissions meant to anchor this outreach have become administrative shells, with no ambassadors, limited capacity, and little strategic direction. Countries with less demographic heft and weaker economies are doing better simply because they are present.

If we needed a symbolic illustration of this absurdity, it came recently at the inaugural Economic Diplomacy Dialogue hosted in Abuja by NACCIMA in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The event was designed to build bridges between Nigeria’s private sector and the global diplomatic community. It brought together foreign ambassadors, ministers, and business leaders to discuss Nigeria’s path to economic transformation. Vision was not in short supply. We heard of special economic zones, clean energy corridors, $1 trillion ambitions, and pragmatic partnerships.

Yet one glaring contradiction stood tall in the room, Nigeria has no ambassadors.

What this moment says, without quite saying, is the disturbing normalization of diplomatic vacancy. We are seeking global investment, while lacking formal state representation in the very countries we want to trade with. We are urging foreign embassies to "invest in Nigeria’s transition economy" while our own missions abroad remain empty, understaffed, or run by subordinates with no strategic mandate.

This is diplomacy by proxy. And it exposes a deeper truth: Nigeria wants to be heard, but has refused to speak. Or rather, it speaks inward, holding summits at home, while staying mute abroad. The symbolism is rich: while we wine and dine foreign envoys in Abuja, we have yet to send a single replacement ambassador into the world, more than a year since their recall.

Let’s be clear. Foreign diplomats who attended that event were not fooled. They noticed. And in diplomatic circles, absence always speaks volumes.

Of course, President Tinubu is not the first to recall envoys. Such resets are routine in political transitions. But a recall without replacement is not reform, it is neglect. Reforms require vision, structure, and follow through. What we have witnessed instead is a yearlong diplomatic vacuum, with over 100 missions stripped of high level leadership since the September 2023 recall.

In diplomacy, gaps are filled, by rivals, by rumor, or by irrelevance. Nigeria must not allow its embassies to become ghost houses while the world moves on. Every day we delay, we diminish our diplomatic reach and economic potential.

It is time to move from recall to redeployment. Time to stop performing diplomacy at home, and start practicing it abroad. These dialogues, however well intentioned, risk becoming high-level monologues unless backed by structure and presence.

Nigeria must stop speaking only to those who are already here. We must start showing up, fully, deliberately, and strategically, out there. The world will not wait for us to find our voice. We must speak, or risk being forgotten.

If this is part of a grand diplomatic overhaul, it must now be matched with urgency, clarity, and competence. The world has changed dramatically in that time: ECOWAS is fracturing, BRICS is expanding, and the return of Trump to the White House signals yet another global pivot. In this shifting terrain, Nigeria’s silence is not neutral, it is costly.

What should worry us is not just the silence, but what that silence costs. In diplomacy, gaps are filled, by rivals, by rumor, or by irrelevance. Nigeria must not allow its embassies to become ghost houses while the world moves on. Every day we delay, we diminish our diplomatic reach and economic potential.

It is time to move from recall to redeployment. The world will not wait for Nigeria to find its voice. We must speak, or risk being forgotten.

John Onyeukwu
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/

 http://about.me/onyeukwu
“Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation.”
-- James D. Wolfensohn
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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

A slight aside:

Oh this litany of woes! Trump talking about s-hole countries without some powerful tigritude response from somebody, somewhere, apart from the latest from Namibia

We also have true grit Mia Mottley 

As Dr Oohay knows, speaking truth to power ain’t always easy, and perhaps, that's why  such serious food for thought makes for such depressing and painful reading that I hope the opposition (always angry) will not address the harbinger of this kind of news, ”If you cannot bring good news, then don't bring any”

Ah,the good old days, the days gone by, Jaja Wachuku , Yusuf Maitama Sule, to name just two 

Who thinks that gone are the days of Nigeria's glory in the international arenas, the good old ECOWAS leadership days , ECOMOG  peace-keeping etc etc etc?

Nigeria’s importance cannot be downplayed; the sleeping giant's importance cannot be downsized : By 2050 Nigeria will be the 3rd most populous country in the world ! Isn’t it mindboggling to think of the implications of having so many mouths to feed? Shouldn’t that be enough reason to have a permanent seat on the Security Council?

Whilst there are those who believe that Nigeria under the Tinubu administration has or is quietly, cost-effectively abdicating a leadership role in international affairs, there are others who don’t think so.

This evening I was pleasantly surprised to find Nigeria featuring so prominently in Patrick Oksanen’s final vision about the future of Ukraine; in the penultimate chapter in his recently published ( 2025)  Rysslands Hemliga Krig Mot Sverige  ( Russia's secret war against Sweden) - “Det artiska kriget 2031” (The Arctic War 2031 ) between pages 316 -317 occurs this paragraph  - an English translation of his macabre wishful thinking: 

 ” Russia is facing a major strategic defeat, when President Putin suddenly suffers a heart attack and dies in his sleep. The new Russian president travels to Switzerland to begin negotiations for a ceasefire. At the Lausanne Peace Agreement, Russia agrees to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine, and the agreement, signed in early 2026, includes the stationing of peacekeeping troops from UN countries that are not members of the EU or NATO,  will be stationed in the area occupied by Russia before February 24, 2022 to "protect" the population. This means that Indian, Nigerian, Brazilian, Kenyan, South African, Australian, Japanese and Swiss UN soldiers will take over security in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk “

[Dr. Oohay]

(Un)Fortunately, for better or for worse, the ONLY VERY large (2nd largest), and the ONLY VERY  HIGHLY populated (2nd most populated) continent without a “requisite” MAXIMUM geo-political STRATEGIC (international) power —nuclear “baby” (aka CHESS). Today’s age of technology power AIN’T nothing but CHESS! Chess Baby! Chess!!!!!!! Chess all the way.

Oohay

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Let us hope fully that sooner or later a diplomatic compromise will be achieved when Zelensky comes to his senses that Ukraine joining NATO is a no-no for Holy Russia, and Patrik Oksanen’s vision of sending Nigerian peace-keepers to Ukraine shall not have to come to pass. Charity begins at home, and  Nigerian peacekeepers could turn their attention homewards where their presence and their competence is more desperately needed combating insecurity and maintaining peace at home, in Boko Haram country.

If not good, the relatively not so bad days when e.g. Rilwanu Lukman was Secretary-General of OPEC, !986-88, 1 Jan 1995 – 31 Dec 2000) and a while later Tam David-West was minister of petroleum and energy ( not that they helped to vastly improve the economy, solved Nigeria’s energy needs and Nigeria’s dependence on oil…

If you’re old enough, you probably remember Nigeria’s oil boom years-enough to make you weep how many trillions of dollars worth of gas they’ve flared, and weep some more that back then, Nigeria didn’t have the foresight to do what Norway did : https://tinyurl.com/2cxerf6t

Questions : If Trump’s USA , still the world’s greatest economy, has downsized their diplomatic  representation globally, why shouldn’t some of Africa's poorer economies judiciously do likewise, instead of maintaining costly  and sometimes capriciously run Embassies abroad as illustrated in the opening chapter of Teju Cole’s “ Everyday Is For The Thief” - in his case ,a simple matter of renewing his passport at the Embassy in New York….

The new realities in Africa - Burkina Faso is said to have paid off all their debts, and since Africa and Nigeria’s new friend China is helping with infrastructure development, shouldn’t we be cultivating what is diplomatically meaningful friendship and partnership? 

On the lighter side : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOuRt9SXX4s&list=WL&index=4

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Beautiful conception and presentation 

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