One Personality, Two Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Nigeria’s Foreign Policies under Olusegun Obasanjo

Abstract

President Olusegun Obasanjo holds the singular honor of being the only Nigerian leader to have ruled Nigeria twice first as a military Head of State between 1976 and 1979, and as a civilian president from 1999 to 2007. Under his two administrations, Nigeria’s foreign policy experienced a lease of life and dynamism in both foreign policy formulation and implementation. However, one could notice a combination of continuity and change in Nigeria’s foreign policy in his second administration compared to the previous one. This paper attempts a comparative analysis of both periods. Relying on content analysis of secondary material, the paper concludes that the role of leadership, as well as the domestic and external environments of the two periods account for the continuity and change witnessed in Nigeria’s foreign policy.

Keywords: Nigeria, Obasanjo, Leadership, Personality Traits, Diplomacy