ABACHA'S FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC POLITY

Abstract

The essence of foreign policy is to respond to internal and external political and social stimuli. This theoretical outlook seems to dictate the preference of foreign policy by most states within the international system, most especially the developed nations of the North. One of such stimuli is national interest, which most states will like to uphold and consider in formulating and executing foreign policy to maximally reap the benefits therein. Some state leaders, especially in most developing countries of the South, dictate to certain extent the direction of foreign policy of a state. Such may explain the Nigerian foreign policy between 1993 and 1998. The Major-General Sani Abacha regime, which lasted between 1993 and 1998, took a downward spiral on the formulation and execution of Nigeria's foreign policy. His dictatorial stance on domestic political terrain was also extended to foreign policy and such later had a boomerang effect on Nigeria as a whole. The focus of this article therefore is to appraise and evaluate how Abacha's regime took a different outlook in formulating Nigerian foreign policy as opposed to previous regimes and administrations. In addition, the article elucidates how such highhandedness on foreign policy affected the internal socio-economic ecology in Nigeria. Thus, the article takes an analytical and narrative outlook toward the regime's foreign policy making to uncover why such hard stance led to socio-economic hardship on Nigeria and Nigerians as a whole. The article adopts interpretative, process tracing and hermeneutic approach to mine data from all available sources.