Yusuf Tuggar, minister of foreign affairs, says Nigeria will not pick sides as world powers struggle for global dominance.
Tuggar spoke to MSNBC, a US news outlet, in an interview
uploaded to his X page on Monday night.
In the face of growing anti-Western sentiments in many
African nations, China has increased its funding programmes and major
infrastructure projects on the continent.
Russia has also also been making fresh inroads into the
continent, capitalising on the expulsion of US and French troops from Sahel
countries.
The development caused northern leaders to ask President
Bola Tinubu to reject alleged proposals from the US government to site military
bases in Nigeria.
However, the US government denied the reports.
Tuggar said Nigeria is wary of Africa becoming the ground
for power contestations as global dominance is always in a state of flux. He,
however, maintained that “our outlook is that of strategic autonomy”.
“We get along with
everyone,” he added.
“We also, of course, have a history of non-alignment, but we
are democratic. We have had seven
successive elections since 1999, and we don’t want to see any private military
companies or mercenaries in our… on our continent.
“Nigeria successfully tackled the insecurity and conflict in
Sierra Leone, in Liberia, leading ECOMOG, and now we’re doing it with the
multinational joint task force, along with Niger, with Cameroon, with Chad.
“And we feel that’s the way forward, as opposed to exogenous
solutions. We would rather endogenous solutions that are supported with… by
countries like America that have been great partners to Nigeria and many others
on the African continent.”
The minister also spoke on Nigeria’s need to belong to the
G20, and the United Nations security council, as a permanent member.
Tuggar said Nigeria’s position as the largest democracy on
the African continent, and the success of its military in degrading the Boko
Haram insurgents, are proof of its capacity to belong to the council.
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Nigeria has depended so heavily on the US military alliance, and this has made Nigeria toothless against Boko Haram, ISWAP and Maghreb terror groups. Everyone knows that, the U.S., France are responsible for the terror extensions in the west African and Sahel Region. And ECOWAS became a destabilising force for Africa as they were helping the west to inflict disorder, political instability, assassinations of political leaders and pronouncements of irrelevant sanctions against African nations who opposes western hegemony and dictates. This is why, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger Republic left ECOWAS because the institution was no longer an economic integration force for the continent. Instead, they allowed western countries carry out whatever they wanted in the continent. If Nigeria had diversify enough its acquisition of military weapons to Russia, his war against terrorism, banditry and kidnapping would have been long been solved like in the case of the three newly confederated African countries, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger Republic who acquired sophisticated arms from Russia to crush terror groups. With this, they have been able to reduce terror atrocities in their respective countries by 80% in less than one year in office, whereas, Nigeria has been fighting against them for decades with outdated weapons from America. And the world is watching how U.S. weapons are being destroyed and burnt by Russia troops in Ukraine.
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