WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT NIGERIA: GOWON LOOKS OUTWARD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001500040009-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2004
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 10, 1973
• Content Type: REPORT

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Nigeria: Gowon Looks Outward
CIA
DOCUMENT SERVICES BRANCH
FILE COPY
Secret
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NIGERIA
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GOVVON AND NEIGHBORS
(eI kirise ruin upper right)
? Macias of Equatorial Guinea
? Eyadema of Togo
? Maga of Dahomey
? Tombalbaye of Chad
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Under the leadership of General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria's Federal Military Govern-
ment has pursued an energetic and diversified foreign policy. Where it once pursued an
almost exclusively oro?Western policy the government shifted gears during the 1967-70 civil
war when Soviet aid and popular;ty grew at the expense of the US and the UK. Soviet
popularity has fallen off in the two years since the end of hostilities, but Lagos has not
returned to Nigeria's ante-bellum pattern in foreign affairs. In fact, the military government
has cultivated a variety of new friends, including the French-speaking African states and the
People's Republic of China.
Gowon has not severed Nigeria's traditional ties to the UK, nor has he abandoned his
suspicions of Communist regimes, but he is expanding relations with foreign governments
regardless of their ideological coloration. He is determined to maintain a more assertive
posture in keeping with Nigeria's size and importance in Africa. This determination
enhances Lagos' standing in Africa and weakens its ties to Europe. It keeps relations with
the superpowers on a pragmatic, issue-oriented basis.
New Emphasis on Foreign Affairs
The civilian regime that governed Nigeri6
until 1966 professed a non-aligned foreign policy,
but in reality it was pro-Western. The architects
of that policy were the post-independence politi-
cians and European-educated civil servants whose
policy positions reflected their own conservative
backgrounds, Nigeria's colonial heritage, and a
preoccupation with domestic affairs.
The activism of I ,e present military leaders
has pointed Nigeria toward genuine non-
alignment and has elevated foreign policy to a
much higher priority. As a result, the External
Affairs Ministry has emerged from relative
obscurity to assume a large role in the formula-
tion and execution of policy. Gowon relies
heavily on the bureaucracy for guidance, and
civilians in the ministry exert considerable influ-
ence on the current regime. It is significant that
these civilians take a more radical line, especially
on ouestions relating to European colonialism,
than does the military elite.
Okoi Arikpo, the commissioner for external
affairs, is among the most influential civilians in
the government. Gowon delegates wide
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discretionary power to
him, but Arikpo also
seizes the initiative and
at times gets way ahead
of Gowon on foreign
policy issues. Since the
civil war, Arikpo has
been occasionally hard
to work with from the
US point of view, but he
must be dealt with since
he is the best informed
and most decisive figure
in the policy-making
process.
Nigeria's foreign service is also enjoying new
prestige, funds, and influence. Late last year, the
government moved to recruit and train a sizable
new group of officers. At that time, Gowon also
announced plans to open several new missions
abroad. Nigeria now has some level of relations
with 29 African states, 9 Communist nations, and
39 non-Communist countries.
Gowon's Style
Gowon found himself in power at the age of
31?-a professional soldier with no background or
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NIGERIA: General Gowon's African Contacts Since January 1970
"MALAGASY
REPUBLIC
State visited by General Gowon
CHAD Head of state visited Nigeria
\r%__J REPUBLIC l1 %
OF
SOUTH AFRICA
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experience in foreign affairs. He received an in-
stant education. With the outbreak of the civil
war, the federal government adopted as its princi-
pal goal the elimination of international support
for the eastern secessionists. The war served to
multiply Nigeria's international contacts, which
Gowon has continued to expand. Gowon has
become polished and professional in his diplo-
matic dealings, and throughout Africa basks in
new-found publicity and stature.
Gowon has made numerous foreign trips
since early 1970, originally to demonstrate
Nigeria's appreciation for support during the civil
war, but increasingly to establish his own image as
a leading statesman and Nigeria's role as the
leader of black Africa. He has taken an active part
in all of the recent heads of state meetings of the
Organization of Ati ican Unity-long neglected by
Nigeria-and has urged other African leaders to do
the same. He has toured 14 African countries in
the last two years, including all of Nigeria's
immediate neighbors, and has received nearly a
dozen heads of state in Lagos. These exchanges
have resulted in few hard agreements, but each
has generated uniformly favorable impressions of
Gowon and Nigeria.
Gowon's peripatetic diplomatic style has
involved him in a variety of international issues.
THE O.A.U. Commission of ten, set up to find ways of solving
the Middle East conflict has ended Its first meeting In Kinshasa.
An official announcement said another meeting Is to be held In
Senegal alter further consultation must !Ave been held with both
Israel and the United Arab Republic as well as the United Nations
Secretary.General, U Thant.
The Head of State; General Yakubu Gowen participated in the
meeting which was pr settled over by President Moktar Ould Caddish
of Mauritania, the current chairman of O.A.U.
The commission. act up at the Summit meeling of the Organln-
lion he AddlsAbaba last June somprlsas Nitwits, Congo-Kinshasa,
Ethiopia. Liberia. Tanzania, Kenya, Ivory Coast, the Senegal, Manrl.
tania and the Cameroun.
Ugandan - Tanzanian War:
what
yrou have heft
.f OJ losing until
You start
advertising
in the
NIGERIAN OBSERVER
GEN GOWON CALLS
FOR PEACEFUL
PRESIDENT NYERERE
of Tanzania
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THE Head of State has called on Tanzania and Uganda to
call off their border fighting and resolve their differences peace-
fully.
Chinese Colonel was
killed during fighting In
one of the borders.
Bath sides have how.
ever accused each other
the two countries was
closed last month on the
orders of President Ill
Amin.
Meanwhile there has
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GOWON REACHES OUT
(clockxwise Jrwn copper ri,4ht)
? Ould Daddah of Mauritania
? Kenyatta of Kenya
? US Secretary of State Rogers
? OAU "Wise Men" with Israeli
Prime Minister Meir
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He was, for example, a key figure in the OAU
"Wise Men" mission which last fall attempted
unsuccessfully to find a solution to the Middle
East impasse. He also offered advice to both sides
during the India-Pakistan war. These personal
The Nigerian public takes pride in Gowon's
growing continental fame and in Nigeria's brighter
image. Presumably Gowon's awareness of the
domestic utility of such patriotic pride has con-
tributed to his eagerness to accommodate the
press and to his willingness to make innumerable
public speeches while abroad. The attention he
receives serves both to drum up popular support
for the government and to distract Nigerians from
domestic problems.
Gowon's policies have yielded good results
abroad, but at some expense at home. Elements
in both the civilian and military leadership
grumble that Gowon's preoccupation with foreign
affairs reduces the time he can devote to pressing
domestic problems. To overcome these objec-
tions, Gowon constantly alters the make-up of his
entourage for trips abroad, making a special effort
to give the 12 state governors foreign experience
and exposure. This strategy, although popular
with those making the trips, has not defused the
criticism of his gadabout approach.
Policy Toward Africa
Among the most dramatic recent develop-
ments in Nigeria's foreign policy have been its
growing support for the OAU and its shift to a
hard line on the question of European disengage-
ment from colonial rule. Nigeria had paid scant
attention to the OAU, but changed its view when
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that body passed a resolution supporting Lagos
during the civil war. Throughout most of the war,
federal leaders nursed suspicions that the OAU's
African Liberation Committee-headquartered in
Tanzania, which supported Biafra-was channel-
ing aid to the Biafrans. With the end of the war,
Gowon has shown greater enthusiasm for the Lib-
eration Committee and for the OAU's Defense
Commission. Moreover, he has used OAU meet-
ings as a platform to gain Africa-wide political
exposure for himself. At the OAU summit in
Addis Ababa last June, he called for the "libera-
tion of at least one colonial territory in the next
three years."
In west Africa, where Gowon's interest and
influence are at their height, Nigeria has assumed
an active but moderate stance. The military gov-
ernment has reached a rapprochement with the
states that recognized or supported Biafra during
the civil war. Lagos is now emphasizing a
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mundane but very practical approach to regional
cooperation. Gowon's many travels have pro-
duced potentially useful agreements on expanding
communications, transport, and trade between
Nigeria and each of its French-speaking neighbors.
The Nigerian Government has faced periodic diffi-
culties in protecting its nationals working in, and
occasionally expelled from, such states as Ghana,
Equatorial Guinea, and Zaire, but, in general,
Nigeria now has very cooperative relations with
all its neighbors. Gowon has stressed over and
over again that Nigeria has no territorial ambi-
tions and that it respects the sovereignty of its
smaller neighbors. He is mindful that Nigeria's
huge economy, physical size, and military capa-
bility inevitably have an intimidating effect on
the other states in the area.
Implications for the UK
Nigeria's concentration on African affairs
obviously has implications for Europe, in par-
ticular for the British. Their popularity in
Nigeria-previously somewhat recovered from the
civil war low-has fallen off again over the past
year. Nigeria was the first Commonwealth
member to withdraw from the Study Group on
Indian Ocean Security in protest of the UK deci-
sion last year to sell arms to South Africa. Gowon
has attempted to take the lead in opposing the
effort to implement a Rhodesian settlement this
year. Official and unofficial reactions in Nigeria
have been entirely negative to both the Pearce
hearings in Rhodesia and to the UK veto of the
Rhodesian resolution at the UN Security Council
meeting in Addis Ababa last month.
Although Gowon's progressive rhetoric is
consistently critical of the UK, he has been care-
ful not to jeopardize his 15-million-pound annual
trade surplus with Britain. Oil, largely extracted
by the British, is his key export. On the
Rhodesian issue, Nigeria has limited itself to calls
for obviously unattainable UN and African solu-
tions. Gowon has not sought to implement any
economic sanctions that could work to Nigeria's
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detriment. Through it all, the UK has continued
to be Nigeria's most important partner in the
fields of defense, foreign trade, private invest-
ment, and technical assistance.
The Big Powers
China-Nigeria's desire to show itself inde-
pendent of the West was underscored in its un-
equivocal support for the admission of the
People's Republic of China to the UN and the
expulsion of Taiwan. Formal recognition of China
was negotiated in early 1971, and later in the year
the two countries exchanged ambassadors. Last
month, Lagos announced that it would enter into
an aid agreement with Peking, emphasizing again
the Nigerian desire to diversify its international
contacts and avoid reliance solely on European
sources of economic assistance.
United States-The foreign policies of the
US and Nigeria differ on most major world issues.
The government and the Nigerian public feel, for
example, that Washington is sympathetic to the
colonial regimes in southern Africa. Still, the US
is a major source of Nigeria's foreign aid, is its
second most important source of imports, and
provides its third largest foreign market. Thus,
despite continuing disagreements on specific
issues, relations between the two countries have
improved since their nadir in the civil war, when
widespread pro-Biafran sympathies in the US re-
duced mutual understanding to a minimal level.
The likelihood is that the trend toward better
working relations will continue. Gowon continues
to encourage international capital to come to
Nigeria, although he has instituted complex regu-
lations requiring Nigerian public and private par-
ticipation in all new enterprises. US private invest-
ment in Nigeria now totals roughly $800 million,
virt---z;!!y all in petroleum, and American business-
men continue to receive reasonably good treat-
ment from the Nigerian Government.
USSR -Ironically, given Moscow's firm back-
ing of the federal government during the civil war
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and Gowon's talk of positive non-alignment, the
US is faring much better these days than the
USSR. When Western arms suppliers balked at
supplying Lagos at the outbreak of the civil war,
the Soviets ingratiated themselves with substantial
military supplies. This created much good will,
as-to a lesser extent-did a trade agreement
signed late last year. On balance, however, the
Soviets' good standing steadily eroded during
the last two vears.
Gowon's initiatives in foreign policy involve
much progressive rhetoric, but they have little
ideological content. He is dedicated to making
Nigeria a significant Third World leader com-
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pletely independent of the major powers.
Gowon`s inclination is to expand his non-Western
contacts. He has recently explored opportunities
for securing petroleum technology from India and
Japan, for example, and he is almost certain to
forge closer links with China. In Africa, Gowon
will continue to seek the leadership of the
rhetc ical war against colonialism. He is likely to
provide token aid to those actually fighting this
battle, but there is little chance that he will in-
volve Nigerians in any genuinely revolutionary
campaigns.
The foreign policy options open to Gowon
have been limited by Niger?a's total dependence
on oil. Revenue is now sufficient for all foreign
exchange needs, but Nigeria could not endure a
prolonged embargo, nor could it maintain current
production levels without the many foreigners
who hold key positions. Unlike several members
of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, Nigeria is likely-in the immediate
future, at least-to take moderate stands in its
negotiations with the major international petro-
leum companies. As Nigeria becomes steadily less
dependent on Western finance and manpower,
however, Gowon will pursue
nationalistic foreign policy-.
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