Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar’s recent address at Chatham House provided a crucial insight into the core tenets of Nigeria’s foreign policy and the complex challenges it faces. From navigating the delicate balance between climate change and energy security to upholding democratic values in a turbulent region, his speech highlighted the nation’s strategic priorities and its commitment to shaping a more stable and equitable global landscape. Here are six key takeaways from his speech.
1. Nigeria’s Dilemma Between Balancing Climate Realities and Dealing with Energy Security: Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar used the platform to highlight the urgent and complex interplay between climate change, resource conflicts, and energy security, emphasizing their real-world consequences for Nigeria and beyond, here is what he said:
“As the debate swings back, forth and now – at least in some quarters – back again on climate change, we understand only too well the contradictions and the challenges. In Nigeria we sometimes have droughts and flooding, in different parts of the country, at the same time. We don’t need to wait for future generations. Lake Chad, that used to be a vast inland ocean, is a tiny, damp shadow of what it once was. And there are real world consequences: combined with demographic change, competition for resources has fuelled tensions and violence between herders and farmers in Nigeria and across the region. And fertile ground for violent extremists to exploit a lot of young people with very little in the way of legitimate opportunity.
And yet as everyone in Europe and beyond has learnt since 2022 – energy security is also national security and an economic security issue and the foundation of a stable international system.
Unmanaged, [the effects of climate change] are some of the most significant triggers for violent extremism and irregular migration. Our problems – are everyone’s problems. Africa knows that if the transition to a more carbon neutral energy equation is to be effective, there has to be a transition that is fair and equitable.”
2. Ambassador Tuggar also reflected on the fragility of democracy, the dangers of hate speech, and the growing interconnectedness of global challenges, emphasizing the need for responsibility in protecting democratic values and regulating digital spaces. His words:
“I would say this: I was born the year a civil war started. I was in my 30s before I got the chance to vote, and have any kind of say in who should form the government that ruled my country. I look at the cheerleaders for military rule in other parts of West Africa now, or those more broadly who try to use the rule of law to break the rule of law, and I am reminded that we can take democracy too easily for granted – right up until the moment that it is taken away.
“In Nigeria, we saw the lives lost and lives ruined by unfiltered hate speech, and were told it was the price of freedom. We knew exactly why the UK government was right to come down so hard last year on those who spread hate and violence with a few clicks on their phone. We think that with rights come responsibilities. This is especially true in the new world of aggregated data, which impacts so many and yet is understood by so few.
“So perhaps one of the lessons of the last few weeks is that the world is genuinely a smaller place than we imagined, and that some of the problems we face in Africa may look a little more familiar here, now, than might have appeared the case until very recently.”
3. The Five Principles of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy: In his speech Ambassador Tuggar stated that Nigeria’s foreign policy serves five principles. And they are:
“As a matter of law, Nigeria’s foreign policy serves five principles: promotion and protection of the national interest, African integration and support for African unity, promotion of international cooperation for peace and mutual respect, respect of international law and treaty obligations and promotion of a just world economic order.”
4. President Bola Tinubu Is Taking Difficult But Necessary Reforms: Ambassador Tuggar used the platform to emphasized the need for strong leadership, political accountability, and the risks of failing to break away from an unsustainable economic model, that Nigeria has practiced over the years. He said that President Bola Tinubu is on the right path, here:
“President Bola Tinubu is the first career politician Nigeria has had as leader in a long time. In a country where politicians typically get a bad rap, I find myself sometimes having to state the obvious: real change requires the assembly of a, to borrow a phrase, ‘coalition of the willing’. We need the right policies, and the means to deliver them. This is, first and foremost, a political task. And this is why the Tinubu government has been able to tackle really difficult, potentially volatile issues with the success that it has had: because of a leadership that knows both what needs to be done, and how to get it done.
“What we are doing, and we are nearly two years in, is to strengthen political accountability, discipline and capacity – in tandem with the sacrifices inevitably associated with the reform of a failed and unsustainable economic model. Our job in the foreign ministry is to explain the delicacy of this process, and the risks associated with it, for us, the region and our partners. But it is also to point out the much greater risks of failure, or – worse still – trying to continue with a system that is tried, tested and failed.”
5. Nigeria’s Foreign Minister emphasizes the country’s commitment to ‘Strategic Autonomy’, drawing from Tafawa Balewa’s legacy to highlight the nation’s right to independent decision-making in political, economic, and security matters while fostering regional stability and advocating for Africa on the global stage. His words:
“We also believe in Strategic Autonomy: our ability to independently make decisions and implement policies that safeguard our national interests, free from undue external influence. This means maintaining sovereignty in political, economic, and security matters for Nigeria while engaging in international partnerships that align with our goals.
“Tafewa Balewa’s commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement was a manifestation of Strategic Autonomy. It acknowledges that no one has as much of an interest making Nigeria work as Nigeria. And that means helping to make the region work, and championing Africa on the wider stage. It is also to uphold the principle of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states.”
6. Ambassador Tuggar during his remarks affirmed Nigeria’s commitment to democratic values within ECOWAS, despite tensions with Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, while also highlighting the region’s shifting security landscape following the withdrawal of Western forces—warning that emerging actors, from Russian private military groups to jihadist insurgents, pose significant threats that Nigeria must confront.
“The point is this: it’s not up to Nigeria to decide who forms the government of countries in our region. But we can compromise only so far on the values of democracy and the vision of community that we share with other ECOWAS countries. We have reached out to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger on many occasions. Every time we offer an olive branch, they use it as a stick with which to beat us. But we have shown that ECOWAS has a distinct identity and that, for all its faults, it has made progress that will leave those on the outside literally and figuratively poorer for it.
“We have seen the departure of French and US forces from the region, with varying degrees of reluctance. There’s no ‘security backstop’ that we, as Nigeria and the region, will not provide for ourselves. And that may not be a bad thing. But don’t for a moment think that the Russian private security companies or the jihadist groups in the Sahel that are taking the place of the French and the Americans lack ambition. Nigeria is fighting on everyone’s frontline.”
