Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:31:27.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nigerian-Soviet Relations: Retrospect and Prospect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Olatunde J.B. Ojo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is a common belief, both within and without Nigeria, that in 1967 there was a sharp reversal in Nigerian foreign relations. That year, it is claimed, marked the end of Nigeria's pro-western and anti-Soviet stances. At the extreme, proponents of this view seek to ridicule Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first prime minister, as essentially a Western stooge and, conversely though unwittingly, to laud the post-1967 Gowon regime as a veritable independent actor, guided solely by objective requirements of the national interest. This claim (and stereotype-creating) is based on asymmetirc evidence and unsystematic analysis: asymmetric, because it relies on Nigeria's image of and attitude towards the Soviet Union to the exclusion of the corresponding Soviet image and attitudes which might have conditioned Nigeria's Soviet policy in the first place; and unsystematic, because it eschews the political, economic and ideological milieu in which Nigerian-Soviet relations operate. One danger, especially for policy making and policy outcome, is the possible exaggeration of superficial and ephemeral changes to obscure fundamental and enduring continuity in relations. This paper aims to put Nigerian-Soviet relations in a perspective that avoids this failing and, in the process, to underscore the factors of continuity which, it is believed, will determine the future prospects.

Nigerian-Soviet relations, Douglas Anglin (1964: 257) once observed, are determined by “the images which each country has of the other.” Before Nigeria's independence on October 1, 1960, these images were far from flattering. All evidence indicates that Nigerian leaders, like their counterparts in other developing countries, had a morbid fear of communism and communist infiltration and subversion (see indications in House of Representatives Debates, henceforth HRD, August 1, 1958: 85; February 12, 1959: 210; and March 1959: 46-48).

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , December 1976 , pp. 43 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aboyade, O. (1962) “A General Critique of the Plan.” Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies 4 (July): 114.Google Scholar
Adomeit, Hannes. (1973) “Soviet Risk-Taking and Crisis Behavior: From Confrontation to Coexistence.” Adelphi Papers, No. 101.Google Scholar
Ajayi, E.A. (1972) “Nigeria-Soviet Aid Relations, 1960-68.” Nigeria: Bulletin on Foreign Affairs 1 (January): 1–9.Google Scholar
Aluko, Olajide (ed.). (1975) The Foreign Policies of African States. Ile-Ife: University of Ife Institute of Administration Library.Google Scholar
Anglin, Douglas. (1964) “Nigeria: Political Non-Alignment and Economic Alignment.” Journal of Modern African Studies 2, 2.Google Scholar
Awojobi, Ayodele. (1975) “Finding Help from Other Sources.” Daily Times (June 15): 5.Google Scholar
Sir.Balewa, Abubakar (1962) “Nigeria Looks Ahead.” Foreign Affairs 40 (October): 136.Google Scholar
Beck, Curt F. (1963) “Czechoslovakia's Penetration of Africa, 1955-62.” World Politics 15 (April).Google Scholar
Carl, Beverly M. (1971) “American Assistance to Victims of the Nigeria-Biafra War: Defects in the Prescriptions on Foreign Disaster Relief.” Harvard International Law Journal 12, 2.Google Scholar
Cohn, Helen D. (1972) Soviet Policy toward Black Africa. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Dean, Edwin. (1972) Plan Implementation in Nigeria, 1962-1966. Ibadan: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ermarth, Fritz. (1969) “The Soviet Union in the Third World: Purpose in Search of Power.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (November): 32–35.Google Scholar
Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1965) National Development Plan: Progress Report, 1964. Lagos: Ministry of Economic Development.Google Scholar
Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1970) Nigeria's Treaties in Force for the Period 1 October 1960 to 30 June 1970. Volumes 1 and 2. Lagos: Ministry of Justice.Google Scholar
Federation of Nigeria. (1956) The Training of Nigerians for the Representation of their Country Overseas: A Statement of Policy of the Government of the Federation of Nigeria. Sessional Paper, No. 11.Google Scholar
Gehlen, Michael. (1967) The Politics of Coexistence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Holzman, Franklyn D. (1965) “More on Soviet Bloc Discrimination.” Fletcher School Reprint Series. Medford.Google Scholar
Idang, Gordon. (1970) “The Politics of Nigerian Policy: The Ratification and Renunciation of the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement.” African Studies Review 13, 2.Google Scholar
Iskenderov, A. (1967) “Problems and Judgements: The Army, Politics, and the People.” Izvestiia (January 17), p. 2 (translated in Current Digest of the Soviet Press 19 [February]: 9-10).Google Scholar
Kanet, Roger E. (1968) “The Recent Soviet Reassessment of Developments in the Third World.” Russian Review 27 (January): 27–41.Google Scholar
Kay, David A. (1970) The New Nations in the United Nations, 1960-1967. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Khrushchev, Nikita. (1970) Khrushchev Remembers. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry. (1966) “Conditions of World Order.” Daedalus 95 (Spring): 503–29.Google Scholar
Lenczowski, George. (1972) Soviet Advances in the Middle East. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Research.Google Scholar
Mummery, David. (1968) The Protection of International Private Investment: Nigeria and the World Community. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Ojo, Olatunde J.B. (1974) “Nigeria's Foreign Policy, 1960-1966: Politics, Economics, and the Struggle for African Leadership.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut.Google Scholar
Phillips, Claude S. Jr. (1964) The Development of Nigerian Foreign Policy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Chris. (1974) “In Search of the Economic Kingdom: The Development of Economic Relations between Ghana and the USSR.” Journal of Developing Areas 9 (October): 3–26.Google Scholar
Stokke, Baard Richard. (1967) Soviet and Eastern European Trade and Aid in Africa. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Thompson, Willard Scott. (1969) Ghana's Foreign Policy, 1957-1966. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Uphoff, N. (1970) Ghana's Experience in Using External Aid for Development, 1957-1966. Berekeley: Institute of International Studies.Google Scholar
Valkernier, Elizabeth K. (1970) “New Trends in Soviet Economic Relations with the Third World.” World Politics 22 (April): 415–32.Google Scholar
Watt, D.C. (1965) Survey of International Affairs, 1961. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whitaker, C.S. Jr. (1970) The Politics of Tradition: Continuity and Change in Northern Nigeria. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yellon, R.A. (1970) “Shifts in Soviet Policies towards Developing Areas, 1964-68.” In Duncan, W. Raymond (ed.), Soviet Policy in Developing Countries, pp. 242–86. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn-Blaisdell.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, William. (1969) Soviet Perspectives on International Relations, 1956-1967. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar