There is a unanimous opinion among international relations experts that Africa looks up to Nigeria and that Africa’s glory days will only come when Nigeria asserts its big brother role ordained by nature across the continent. Unfortunately, faced with internal tensions and a wobbling economy for about a decade, Nigeria has slipped. Only in the past is the story of how Nigeria dominated the African Union and the ECOMOG forces and used both to enforce peace and assert control across a volatile continent told. Those days are long gone.
Though the continent longs for Nigeria to once more take up its role, this time, with soft power spread across the continent.
Countries hold influence over one another using primarily two touch points: Military power and soft power. Soft power is the economic power one country has over another. The US influence across the globe is more to its soft power than its military strength. China is also copying from the playbook. As an observer keen on Nigerian foreign policies, I have followed the 2021 set of ambassadors sent out by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari across the globe to see how they set out to influence for Nigeria.
Ambassadors are the fieldmen who execute and bring to practical realities the theoretical framework of every country’s foreign policy. They are model citizens who must be pragmatic and unquestionably patriotic, to always seek an opportunity for their country.
While I have seen a lot of positives to report about the 2021 ambassadors, I am most impressed with the activities of the Nigerian Ambassador to Burundi, Amb. Elijah Onyeagba, a pragmatic Ambassador who is blazing the trail in a landlocked country where not so many expected anything to emanate from. Burundi is a landlocked country with a long history of war, often, ethnically motivated. Economically, it ranks among the poorest countries in the world. Anyone posted to the country might begin to rue their luck and ask “Why me?”.
When Elijah Onyeagba took over as the Ambassador of the country, he did not go about cursing his luck but drew from his training as an economist to innovate mechanisms through which Nigeria can exert soft power in Burundi. Elijah is a University of Nigeria-trained Economist with a master’s and doctorate degree in the field and also an MBA in finance. He cut his teeth in the banking sector with Equitorial Trust Bank from where he moved around the financial sector before he became the Head of Commercials, Northern Operations of the Nigerian Securities, Printing and Minting (NSPM PLC) thereafter he set out with his rich experience in the financial sector into the housing sector to become the Chief Executive Officer of Countrywide Housing Company, set up to provide affordable housing in Nigeria.
Understanding the importance of soft power, Elijah drew from his experiences in the private sector to set up the Nigerian-Burundi Business Council which was charged with the task of marketing Burundi to Nigerians to make it an investment destination. In 2022, he set up the first Nigerian-Burundi Business Summit, which success has changed the Nigerian-Burundi relationship for good. Today, a University with a Nigerian promoter, Olivia University is active in Bujumbura and reshaping education in the landlocked country. Runbuja, coined from Burundi and Abuja, is a marathon event created by the Ambassador and sponsored by the Nigerian consulate in Burundi to deepen relationship between the two countries and attract tourism to Burundi. Fortunately, A Nigerian-owned five-star hotel exists in Bujumbura to gain from the rich tourism potential of Burundi.
Elijah has barely spent two years as the Nigerian Ambassador to Burundi, but in this short while, he has accounted for himself and proven once more that leadership should be entrusted in the hands of cerebral and fecund individuals who are keen to create value and enrich mankind with their knowledge. Nigeria can only get better if the likes of Elijah are allowed to make a difference.