For the sixth installment of the Foreign Policy 101 series, let’s move to sub-Saharan Africa. We’ll take a look at U.S. policy in Nigeria. In most of these foreign policy posts, I approach policy through issues of war and peace. That’s a bit less useful in Nigeria, where economic issues loom large. The extraction of resources looms largest.
Oh, the U.S. fights wars in the region. But not as often as other places and not often at all in Nigeria. The U.S. has long been a Nigerian ally. It spends most of its time there managing its economic interests, especially via primitive accumulation. The U.S. state – and both U.S. and European NGOs – uses Nigeria as a place for gathering capital.
1993 Presidential Election in Nigeria
The military ruled Nigeria for about a decade prior to the 1993 presidential election. The U.S. made all the standard noises about ‘democracy,’ but it kept friendly relations. Ronald Reagan, in particular, expressed ‘concern‘ of a non-serious sort. The harshest actions included economic sanctions.
The military promoted a transition to civilian rule in 1993 by holding an election. And then it decided it didn’t like the winner. Unofficial reports showed a victory by Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP positioned itself as center-left, more liberal than social democratic or even progressive. But it was at the far left of what the military allowed. Abiola himself was a businessman who campaigned mostly on issues of poverty relief and sound fiscal policy. He wanted to make capitalism a bit less painful for people.
Even this was too much for the military in Nigeria, and they didn’t allow Abiola to assume control. He sought help from the U.S. and U.K., which they were reluctant to provide. The result: a brief civilian rule by Ernest Shonekan, a corporate executive. That lasted about three months. He was overthrown by Sani Abacha, another military ruler. Abacha’s 5-year presidency was great for capital – as Nigeria cut inflation, built massive infrastructure, and increased the country’s foreign exchange reserves. But it was bad for democracy, as he veered well into authoritarian territory, racking up a terrible human rights record and a massive police state.
Transition to All Progressives Congress
Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999. From 1999 to 2011, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) won all elections. It’s the sort of center-right party the military didn’t mind. The PDP lost the initiative in 2015, when the center-left All Progressives Congress (APC) defeated it and then won re-election in 2019.
The APC shows some similarity to Abiola’s SDP. The social democratic nationalist leader Obafemi Awolowo and the socialist politician Aminu Kano influence some of its members. But the APC hasn’t yet had the kinds of troubles the SDP had. Why? Partly because it runs a broader ideological coalition. It includes everything from liberal and progressive parties to the fairly right-wing All Nigeria Peoples Party. Opposition to the PDP seems to unite the APC over and above any alternative program.
The APC and the Military
The leader of the APC is Muhammadu Buhari, a man himself deeply entrenched in the military structure of Nigeria. He was a Major General by the 1980s, and he overthrew the government in 1983. As a result, the APC has allies within the military. It’s unlikely the military sees Buhari as a threat to anywhere near the same degree it saw Abiola as one.
And so, Buhari and the APC government look like establishment figures looking to make the world a bit better for people without changing the underlying social structure. They’ve made some headway against corruption, particularly the issues of corruption faced by the previous government. Many of these issues relate to an arms deal connected to the fight against a Boko Haram insurgency.
Clinton Global Initiative
The U.S. has long been an ally of Nigeria, and it has long promoted the dreaded ‘stability’ in the region – i.e., careful promotion of perceived U.S. interests. In exchange for pursuit of policies friendly to the U.S., the U.S. overlooked most problems and issues. However, far from just the U.S. state itself, Nigeria long promoted policies friendly to global capital.
That latter point opens up potential insights into the breadth of U.S. foreign policy in Nigeria and sub-Sarahan Africa. One very capital-friendly project Nigeria is working on is the Eko Atlantic city project. It’s a joint effort between the Nigerian government, the Lagos State government, and private capital and its supporting NGOs. In its basic outline, the project is a clear-cut case of primitive accumulation facilitated by global capital and NGOs.
Eko Atlantic is reclaiming the sea in order to establish a zone of commerce and private capital not subject to the broad regulatory apparatus applicable to businesses operating in any large city. Its goal is to offer private capital a safe haven for the finance industry. It’ll also offer tourists a ‘safe,’ ‘sanitized’ travel experience.
A Haven for Capital
Kate Jane Fernelius wrote about this in a recent issue of Current Affairs. She termed it – quite rightly – a ‘private city.’ The project has backing from the Clinton Global Initiative and billionaire financiers Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury.
With the Chagourys, we can bring this picture full circle. They made much of their fortune in the oil industry, a major part of the local economy and long the primary source of wealth. It’s also a frequent site of contention between private capital and the interests of the broader Nigerian public.
The Clinton Global Initiative is deeply wrapped up in the interests of the U.S. state. Indeed, it’s organized by a former U.S. President. In the case of Eko Atlantic, it serves primarily a marketing role. It presents Eko Atlantic as a modern and ‘eco-friendly’ city, but it papers over the very real economic devastation it has caused. One incident that has already happened is an ocean surge that killed numerous people. The Clinton Global Initiative serves to paper over incidents like this, prevent backlash, and attract more finance capital.
It does so well these days, considering the controversy and shutdown of the Initiative in and around the 2016 election in the U.S. Nevertheless, it serves as an example of how private capital and its apparently ‘benevolent’ allies expand the reach of global capital anywhere in the world.
Nigeria and the U.S.
U.S. policy in Nigeria represents broader U.S. policy in sub-Saharan Africa quite well. The U.S. is much more likely to fight explicit wars involving material resources in places like the Middle East. It’s more likely to wage battles over specific governments in Latin American nations like Bolivia and Venezuela. Its operations in sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, are more likely to promote primitive accumulation via close alliances between global capital, governments, and private NGOs organized around the promotion of resource extraction.
In modern times, this continues via ‘accumulation by dispossession.’ Our policy in Nigeria provides a key case as to how all this plays out in practice. It’s much broader than any single administration. Indeed, it marshals the resources of the broader bipartisan foreign policy consensus. But it involves NGOs that don’t look particularly invasive or scary on the surface. They serve to soften the rough edges of foreign policy in the minds of the public. They even appeal to ‘progressive’ values, in a way much analogous to the Democratic Party at-large.
The U.S. left’s struggle to build a foreign policy must account for these operations.
Foreign Policy 101
Thinking about what to read next? Why not continue by reading about U.S. policy toward other nations?
Israel/Palestine
Syria
North Korea
Venezuela
Bolivia
