Multilateralism and the hegemonic posture of a regional power: A case study of Nigeria, 1960-2015

This study examines Nigeria’s multilateral policy vis-à-vis its hegemonic position in Africa since 1960. It evaluates the extent to which Nigeria can be considered a re-gional hegemon in Africa and how such hegemonic status has been pursued through multilateral institutions. Thus, the study identifies those areas where Nigeria has demonstrated its hegemonic roles in multilateral institutions. The study employs qualitative method of data collection and found that Hegemonic Stability Theory, Regional Security Complex Theory and Role Theory are the most suitable of all the-ories that can adequately explain Nigeria’s multilateral policy in relation to its re-gional hegemonic posture in Africa. This is discovered through triangulation of qual-itative data sources which included semi-structured interviews, focus-group inter-views, elite interviews, documentary analysis, archival sources, speeches, reports, journal articles, textbooks, and newspapers. The study shows that Nigeria dominated African political terrain through the following roles: decolonisation, dismantling of apartheid regimes in southern African countries, capacity building, peacekeeping, democracy promotion and financing the regional multilateral organisations. Thus, in achieving the aforementioned, the study shows that there are external and internal factors that dictated Nigeria’s multilateral policy since independence. Some of the factors identified by the study are security, economics, neighbours, extra-African powers, geography, military preponderance, population and financial capability. This study also evaluates the multilateral policy of Nigeria and discovered there are areas where success has been recorded while there are also some aspects where failure has been noted. The historical overview of the post-independent Nigerian foreign policy suggests that Nigeria’s multilateral policy received a boost in the 1970s under Gen-eral Gowon and General Olusegun Obasanjo. This was as a result of the civil war that ravaged the country for three years (1967-70). Overall, the study has contributed to intellectual debates on the role of regional power in regional governance. It has also shed light on the exercising of hegemonic role at regional level through multilat-eralism. For further research agenda, the study recommends there is need to employ unilateralism and bilateralism in the foreign policy of Nigeria to study the country’s regional hegemonic posture in Africa.