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BOOK REVIEWS

143

St Antony' College, Oxford

A. H. M. KIRK-GREENE

Issues in International Relations and Nigeria's Foreign Policy, by Rufa'i A.


Alkali. Zaria, Bob Academic Press Inc., 1996.
back. ISBN 978-125-146-8.

ix+151pp.

N200.00 paper-

This book appraises two mutually inter-related topics. Issues in international


relations are examined against the background of which Nigeria's behaviour on the
international arena is discussed. In a succinct manner, Dr Alkali has rivetingly
dissected Nigeria's foreign policy, carefully highlighting the domestic and external
forces and influences which have shaped its vicissitudinous character over a period
of three decades.
In ten terse chapters, each introduced by an apropos quotation, the book
examines a range of disparate but inter-linked issues: the concept of state sovereignty and the role of international law; the pattern of contemporary international
politics from the onset of the 'scientific revolution' to the nuclear age; the evolution
of the Nigerian nation, the character of its independence and the socio-economic
setting; and the role of Nigeria in international politics. Chapters 6 and 7

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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

Rendez-vous . . .: An authorized biography of Chief Justice Mohammed


Bello, by Mohammed Kamil. Lagos, Malthouse Press Limited, 1995. 215 pp.
paperback. ISBN 978-O23-02O-3.
This book is the biography of one of Nigeria's longest serving Chief Justices of the
Federation, Mohammed Bello. Written in a straightforward style, die author
sought to place his subject in the context of history, contemporary setting and the
socio-religious and cultural values and ethos which shaped his outlook. Himata,
his grandmother, petted him and profoundly moulded his outlook as would many
a grandmother in a typical Nigerian emirate. So too was Bello deeply influenced
by his father, Gidado, the Mufti of Katsina. Bom into a family of jurists, Bello's
rise to eminence, however, was entirely the result of self-worth rather than family
circumstances. He was, in the main, a self-made man.
In as many as 13 chapters, the book charts die enchanting maze of Bello's
transformation from colonial to independent Nigerian, giving his strong views on
colonial rule and Nigerian unity. As a Crown Counsel, Director of Public
Prosecution, Justice of the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of Nigeria, Bello
remained consistent over the decades in die pursuit of his belief in justice undelayed
and undiluted widi injurious considerations be they material, political, religious or
primordial. As a public prosecutor, reviewer of appeals or in delivering judgement
over tricky cases, particularly those involving politics or the interest of the many

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Reality m Foreign Policy: Nigeria after the Second Republic, occupies the latter part of

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