Its really hard to look at where we are today as a Nation without feeling that sting of “how the mighty have fallen.”
It’s easy to look around and think that the way the world talks about Nigeria is normal until you realise we don’t know just how deep we have fallen. Nigeria wasn’t just a big player; we were a superpower in the diplomatic and economic scheme of geopolitics.
Back in the 1960s, we had that swagger. We were a young nation, but we were absolutely fearless. Take 1961, for instance. When France decided to conduct unauthorized nuclear tests in the Sahara, we didn’t just write a strongly worded letter. We went for the economic jugular. We officially terminated diplomatic ties, and most powerfully, we banned all French ships and aircraft from our ports and air space. We basically told a major European power that their business was frozen until they respected our continent. That was not a country looking for aid; that was a country waging a successful diplomatic and trade war.
But the real power play came later, when we learned how to use our crude oil.
In 1979, the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was stalling on her stance against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. Nigeria didn’t wait for a consensus. We accused British Petroleum (BP) of trading with the regime and, in a breathtaking move, we nationalized their assets, forcefully taking over BP’s 20% stake in Shell-BP. Expatriates were genuinely scrambled under a 24-hour notice. Thatcher had no choice; her government lost a massive, immediate revenue stream, and she was forced to rapidly modify her stance on apartheid. We literally used our economic power to push a global political change.
This wasn’t just a UK problem, either. The US was equally dependent.
When we threatened to cut oil supplies in the late 70s, it caused global jitters because the US was relying on Nigeria for roughly 17 percent of all its oil imports at the time, nearly one out of every five barrels they imported. When the ‘Oil Weapon’ headline ran across American newspapers, they weren’t being dramatic; the US stock exchange suffered its worst plunge in six years because Nigeria made them nervous. We weren’t asking for help; we were dictating the health of the American economy.
Even up till the late 90s, when General Abacha was in charge, that diplomatic fear factor remained. While his regime was rightly controversial at home, globally, he forced world leaders to engage and, yes, often plead diplomatically just to manage the relationship.
In the field, it was even clearer. I personally witnessed the dominance of the Nigeria-led ECOMOG peacekeeping force. When ECOMOG was in Liberia and Sierra Leone, we weren’t a small cog in a UN machine. We contributed between 80% and 90% of the troops and the vast majority of the funding. ECOMOG was Nigeria’s army, and it was dictating terms to the smaller UN, EU, and US observer missions. We were the regional power, and everyone else was just watching us work.
It’s just wild to think about that history and compare it to the present. We went from dictating global economic policy and running entire regional peacekeeping operations, to… well, you know. I hope remembering just how mighty we once were gives us the drive to restore that confidence and capacity.