The framework of “role conceptions” and Nigeria's external engagements

Abstract

This article relies on the intellectual framework of “national role conceptions” to explain Nigeria's wide‐ranging international obligations. Although Nigeria has a rich foreign policy literature, this framework is rarely directly employed in analyzing the country's many external engagements and the motives behind them. Nigeria has always assumed international roles that are in tandem with its fundamental foreign policy objectives. These roles are inspired by the identities that the country has constructed and projected for itself overtime and the expectations of peers (or other actors). Nigeria's constructive external engagements and role performance notwithstanding, there have been some misalignments. These include the sorry state of Nigeria's foreign missions, domestic contradictions, and the fact that Nigeria has sometimes behaved sluggishly in its role performance. This work recommends that Nigeria's diplomatic missions must be adequately financed, the domestic contradictions leading to disputation over foreign policy roles must be addressed, and Nigeria must overcome its occasional complacencies in Africa.