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143
A. H. M. KIRK-GREENE
ix+151pp.
N200.00 paper-
of this revealing memoir opens with his determination to get out of serving the
'abrupt, aggressive and dictatorial' Colonel Ojukwu, the new governor in Enugu
('Escape from Biafra'). Safe in London, he quickly became a willing victim to the
Ford Foundation head-hunters: they knew a winner when they saw one. He
reviews his international years and his return, in 1973, to Nigeria, to work in the
private sectorbut not before he had headed a landmark Public Service Review
Commission, whose report not only bore his name but also (he modestly fails to tell
us) introduced a new word into the Nigerian vocabulary: 'Have you been paid your
Udoji [arrears of salary] yet?'.
Udoji's epilogue is, sorrowfully, titled 'I Weep for Nigeria'. His regret extends
to more than the conventional woe at today's 'country without national loyalty . . .
widi widespread corruption . . . where the governed have lost confidence in the
government'. He directs his condemnation to Lugard, too, as 'the man who did
the greatest disservice to corporate Nigeria'; to the 'retarding' policy of Indirect
Rule; and to the 'ad hoc and fire-fighting manner in which power was transferred to
Nigerians, [with] inadequate preparation and consultation'. Unconsciously, perhaps, Udoji ends his remedies for le mal nigerian on the same note as he must have
heard as an administrative cadet at Cambridge in 1947: 'Finally is the absolute
necessity of developing social conscience, pride in selfless service . . . Nigeria is
yearning for leaders who will exhibit those higher values that make individuals
greatvalues that money cannot buy".
Another time and another place would allow one to review the mould-breaking
memoirs of two other distinguished Nigerianand Cambridge-educated
administrators, Simeon Adebo's Our Unforgettable Years, the first volume of the
memoirs of the Secretary to the Premier of Western Nigeria, Udoji's opposite
number in Ibadan; and Saburi Biobaku's When We Were Young, which takes his
story through the colonial days at college in Nigeria and university in Britain up to
1950, soon after he was ga2etted as an Education Officer in the Colonial
Service. What is more, all three books are publishedappropriatelyin Nigeria
and so are readily available to Nigerian readers. For us in Britain, our problem
is to learn of their existence, let alone how to obtain them easily. Nigerian
distributors, please note!
144
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
specifically examine Nigeria's role and sacrifice in the liberation of two Southern
African statesZimbabwe and South Africa while chapters 8 and 9 focus on the
twin challenges to the widely held perception of Nigeria's leadership role in Africa
from post-apartheid South Africa and Nigeria's immediate neighbours.
Being mainly a review of existing knowledge, this book draws from an impressive
array of extant sources on the theory of international relations and the conduct of
Nigeria's foreign policy. The book is diagnostic and prescriptive, reflecting Dr
Alkali's frustration with Nigeria's performance on the international arena compared
with its opportunities and potential. Accordingly, suggestions on how to turn
Nigeria's foreign policy away from placidity to dynamism, a view balanced by
Nigeria's former Foreign Minister Ibrahim Gambari's adieu to policy Theory and
the book. Of particular significance is Dr Alkali's echoing of a widely discussed
assertion that as a neo-colonial state, Nigeria can only play an appreciable role
in international politics when it 'completely decolonises itself' (p. 4). To this
desideratum was added a litany of domestic sources of danger, notably political
opportunism and deep economic crisis (p. 143). To the extent that a nation's
image and role abroad mirror its domestic setting, this view is unassailable but
whether Nigeria, indeed any nation, can completely decolonise itself must remain
problematic.
Although the curious academic will find Dr Alkali's idea of a select bibliography wherein the years of publication of his sources are bracketed after the names
of publishers rather than of authors novel, for anyone interested in international
affairs and Nigeria's foreign policy as a student, scholar, practitioner or the
general reader, this book is a handy and commendable companion. There is
nothing as concise on Nigeria's foreign policy in the last decade to compare with
this book.
Department of History, Nigerian Defence Academy
ALHAJI M. YAKUBU
Reality m Foreign Policy: Nigeria after the Second Republic, occupies the latter part of