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Nigeria NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES AND PERCEPTIONS
Safeguarding the sovereign, independence and
territorial
integrity of the state was the central pillar of Nigerian
national security policy. Other guiding principles were
African
unity and independence, nonintervention in the internal
affairs
of other states, and regional economic development and
security
cooperation. Subordinate goals included military
self-sufficiency
and regional leadership. In pursuing these goals, Nigeria
was
diplomatic and flexible, but it employed coercive methods
or
measured force when necessary. Nigeria was an active
participant
in the United Nations (UN), the Organization of African
Unity
(OAU), and ECOWAS. In 1990 the leadership seemed intent on
retrenchment, according priority to domestic political and
economic problems, and displayed a mature and conciliatory
approach to foreign policy
(see Foreign Relations
, ch. 4).
Nigeria's location on the Gulf of Guinea, straddling
western
and equatorial Africa, its long land and coastal
boundaries, and
its offshore oil deposits defined the country's regional
geostrategic situation
(see
fig. 1). A British colonial
background set it apart from its francophone neighbors, an
historical anomaly that affected the local security
milieu.
Nigeria's relations with the major powers were shaped, in
the
case of Britain and France, largely by this postcolonial
heritage. A short-lived defense pact with Britain after
independence was terminated in 1962. In the case of the
superpowers, whose interests in the region until the late
1980s
were functions of their global rivalry and resource needs,
Lagos
deliberately balanced its relations with Washington and
Moscow.
Nigeria's security concerns and threat perceptions
emanated
from many quarters. The country's dependence on the
production
and export of oil was aggravated by naval deployments of
the
major powers along the maritime transit routes of the
South
Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea. Its experience of
incursions by
neighbors, coupled with fears of foreign influence or of
subversion of neighbors by such potential adversaries as
France,
Libya, and South Africa, heightened Lagos's sensitivities
about
border security. Regional conditions also produced a sense
of
isolation and uncertainty, particularly shifts in the
balance of
power across northern Africa, political instability in
West
Africa, and encirclement by relatively weak francophone
states
with residual or formal defense ties to their former
colonial
power. More generally, conflicts throughout Africa and the
related propensity for great power intervention (for
example, in
Chad, Zaire, Angola, and Ethiopia) and occasional
eruptions of
radicalization or militant pan-Africanism were inimical to
Nigeria's interest. Finally, South Africa's apartheid
policy,
regional dominance in the continent, and nuclear
capability
constituted threats to Nigeria's national security goals
throughout the 1980s. Broadly speaking, therefore,
Nigeria's
security conditions and concerns could be grouped into
three
separate but related categories: local and bilateral,
African and
regional, and global.
Data as of June 1991
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