As Nigeria charts a new foreign policy, President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the nation’s interests must determine whatever policy was adopted.
President Jonathan said this at the seminar on review of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy organised by the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations (PAC-IR) held yesterday in Abuja.
He said that new challenges must be captured as the policy must be at the service of all Nigerians both at home and abroad.
He also called for the reforming and strengthening of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to drive the foreign aspirations of all Nigerians.
Earlier in an address, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru said that Nigerians must benefit maximally from the nation’s foreign policy.
Ambassador Ashiru, who had in many fora canvassed for a trade-driven foreign policy, said that the new foreign policy should aim to address the nation’s economic and social challenges in job creation and protection of lives and property.
He called for adequate funding of the nation’s foreign missions abroad if the new policy must succeed.
Also speaking, the Chairman, PAC-IR, Emeka Anyaoku, who disclosed that 50 years of the nation’s foreign policy had been characterised by the desire to be a ‘big-brother’ to other African nations, however, said the policy must be changed to reflect contemporary global changes.
He said that the new foreign policy must “face the challenge of consolidating good governance at home and on the African continent… We must anchor our new foreign policy on economic development at home.”
Nigeria had been Afro-centric in its foreign policy since independence but later added the ‘citizen-centered diplomacy’ which had also been largely unsuccessful in protecting Nigerians in other countries.
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