Nigeria Launches Diplomatic Offensive to Garner US Support

Professor Ade Adefuye

The Nigerian Foreign Mission in Washington DC has launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at “winning the hearts and minds of Americans,” in the various areas of governance needing external support.

Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States, Professor Ade Adefuye, disclosed to THISDAY that the lecture delivered at the Embassy last Friday by INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, on preparations and readiness for the 2015 elections, was part of a series of diplomatic manoeuvres, which continues this morning with a visit of a 15-member delegation of the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

An important and controversial member of the Council and former US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. John Campbell, who wrote a controversial treatise predicting doomsday for Nigeria in 2015, was dropped from the list of 15 names for obvious reasons.

Campbell, it is understood, had made futile and frantic efforts to re-establish healthy relations with the country, including a request to meet President Jonathan and other important dignitaries from Nigeria during their official visits to the US.

In his book, Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink, Campbell dwelt heavily on a country exhibiting the symptoms of a failing and fragile state and in a recent interview with the Punch newspaper insisted that that view has not changed.
According to Campbell: “My view has not changed about the serious challenges Nigeria faces. “I think the challenges are more pronounced than they were before the Boko Haram insurrection began in the North. Political life is also unsettled by the approach of the 2015 elections.

“The ruling party has not yet presented a candidate. But most observers expect that the president will seek re-election. As for the opposition party, there does not seem to be a consensus presidential candidate.”

However, today’s interaction is aimed at fostering a healthy and better forecast of the country beyond Campbell’s apocalypse of a failing state.

According to Thomas Bowman, Associate Director, Washington Programme of the Council, a select group of “approximately 15 CFR members who have expertise in Nigeria and US-Nigeria bilateral relations,” will be present with Chris Tuttle, Director of Washington Programme, initiating a roundtable conversation aimed at fostering free exchange of ideas.

Adefuye said the Embassy has been engaging key stakeholders; Congressmen, think-tanks, journalists and the general public, on contemporary events in the country while a key official at the Embassy disclosed that “the ambassador has been holding series of meetings with the State Department, the National Security Council and the White House,” and today will continue with the “US influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) over lunch,” along with his heads of sections at the premises of the Embassy.”

On Wednesday, Ambassador Adefuye will deliver a keynote speech at the US Chamber of Commerce, to brief them on the situation in Nigeria with the aim of sustaining the tempo of INVESTMENT flow into the country.

Responding to the INEC chairman’s lecture, which attracted Nigerians, civil society organisations and US nationals, Adefuye said the INEC boss has transformed theory into practice giving Nigerians the freest and fairest elections in 2011, bringing the intellectual class, the NYSC and other public spirited bodies to execute this project. This class resisted all attempts to compromise and they delivered, adding that Jega has no choice but to improve on his rating.

Adefuye said Jega has made his job easier because institutionalised free and fair elections constitute a stimulus to growth, especially for those who want to come to Nigeria and INVEST, adding that “because people know elections cannot be rigged, the state governors are making frantic efforts to deliver.
“There is a strong nexus between democracy and development. Jega’s visit to the US has been rewarding because he learnt something new in anticipation of 2015, while sharing his ideas that say something positive about Nigeria, not just Ebola which we have routed anyway to the acclaim of the international community.

“Nigeria is not all about Boko Haram and Chibok Girls and other negative projections but continues to evolve as the bastion of democracy.”

As a follow up to that, Adefuye’s future interactions with key US officials, the Embassy source said, will be based on why the US stands to benefit from a strong and secure Nigeria, with her support in fighting insurgency and maintaining existing bilateral relations to the benefit of both countries.

Source: Thisday