Professor Aituaje Irene Pogoson of the University of Ibadan has noted that a clearer articulation of President Bola Tinubu’s 4-D renewed foreign policy doctrine is urgently required.
The Professor of Political Science stated this while delivering the 545th inaugural lecture of the university titled: “The World in Transition: Understanding Power in the International System” .
The erudite scholar also stressed the need to address series of socio-economic and political problems facing Nigeria for the country to take her rightful place in the new global order.
The lecture was the 14th in the series of lectures for the 2022/2023 academic session, 11th inaugural lecture from the Political Science and the 1st in the specialization of International Relations.
The inaugural lecture held at Trenchard Hall was presided over by Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Kayode Adebowale, who was accompanied by the three Deputy Vice – Chancellors and other principal officers of the institution.
Also in attendance were former Vice-Chancellors of the nation’s premier university; Professors Olufemi Bamiro and Abel Idowu Olayinka; among other erudite scholars and eminent personalities.
Delivering the lecture, Professor Pogoson, who is the first female lecturer in the Department of Political Science of the university and first female Head of the Department (HOD), said Nigeria is not appropriately positioned in the new global order.
The scholar, who stated that the lecture covered her research interest in international politics, Nigeria’s foreign policy and gender studies, declared that Nigeria should maintain respect and relevance in the International system.
To achieve this, Professor Pogoson argues that “there is urgent need to re-strategize and re-formulate Nigeria’s foreign policy to capture the internal and external dynamics of the Nigerian state”.
She advised the President Tinubu’s administration that repositioning Nigeria as a global actor required fixing the domestic challenges confronting the country, including; prevalence corruption, insecurity, weak economy and multi-dimensional poverty.
Speaking on President Tinubu’s efforts towards repositioning Nigeria within the international system, Pogoson said the administration came into power at a period of global geopolitical and geostrategic alignments and re-alignments which are all dramatically shopping Nigeria’s foreign policy and external relations”.
She added that: “The Tinubu’s administration unveiled its foreign policy agenda termed ‘Nigeria’s 4-D Renewed Foreign Policy Doctrine’, comprising Democracy, Demography, Development and Diaspora.
“The 4-D Foreign Policy Doctrine is said to represent a deliberate shift towards more international dynamics, and value – driven foreign relations.
“While as assessment of President Tinubu’s foreign policy direction may be premature, a clearer articulation of the essentials of the 4-D doctrine, in terms of its achievable concrete policies and actions, is urgently required”.
The lecture was Professor Pogoson’s third public lecture in the university. The first ess the maiden departmental lecture of the Department of Political Science in 2013 that focused on terrorism and Nigeria’s national security; the second was the 22nd Faculty Lecture of the Faculty of the Social Sciences in 2018, during which she argued that the rise of other powers were threatening the unipolar hegemony of USA.
