Opinion

Israel vs Iran: What is Nigeria’s foreign policy thrust?

Published

1 year ago

June 19, 2025

Nigeria’s foreign policy on the Israel Iran conflict is under scrutiny, prompting questions about national interest and the nation’s role in international affairs

“Countries have no permanent friends or enemies but permanent interests” – Lord Palmerston, 19th century British Prime Minister.

I was aghast when I read of Nigeria poking her nose into the scuffle between Israel and Iran. What is our own, as they say, in the long-standing enemity between Jews (Israelis) and Persians (Iranians)?

Is our beef ethnic, economic, political, religious, moral high ground or what? Are we being goaded by some interests around President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take the side of Iran for religious reasons? Or are we just playing busybody and meddlesome interloper?

What special interest(s) do we have in each of the countries trading missiles that will injure us irreparably, thus forcing us to come out with the statement issued by our government?

In other words, what special loss are we likely to suffer that other countries or peoples are not going to suffer, thus putting a heavy burden on us to speak out as forcefully as we have done while many other countries have maintained stoic silence or have sat on the fence; acting neither here nor there?

The statement by our government blamed Israel for its “preemptive strike” at about a hundred Iranian military facilities, killing top military officers and scientists, including civilians, and inflicting a huge damage whose actual extent is yet to be fully determined.

We also preached peace, urged restraint, advised negotiation and warned against escalation of hostilities that may spread beyond the theatres of conflict and consume the entire region as well as other parts of the world.

The beginning of the statement which condemned Israel for its “preemptive strike” should have been omitted. The other parts of the statement are passable.

Now, Israeli leaders will laugh at us as they read the opening part of our statement condemning their action. If I were to help them draft a response, it would be a terse: “Thank you very much, Mr. Busybody and Meddlesome Interloper!

We are not like you! You who opened your eyes and watched as Fulani terrorists came from all over the world to turn your entire territory into killer-fields, drenched in blood, before you woke up from your slumber!

You are now running from pillar to post when a preemptive strike by you, such as we have taken against Iran, would have saved you all the trouble and irreparable losses still ongoing.

Thank you for your advice on the need for restraint and peace. Ever heard the statement: ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ ? That is our own advice to you!”

There are many of our own people’s wisdom that preach preemptive strikes. One says to avoid that protruding branch of a tree from poking you in the eye, take notice of it (dodge it) from afar.

Another says if you know that your eye-balls are sunk deep inside their sockets, start to cry early so that enough tears can quickly well in your eyes for people to notice.

One more: You do not wait for the insect called “talubo” to enter your eyes before taking precautionary measures.

There is this other one that says you must begin to trim the branches of the “iroko” tree while it is still tame-able; otherwise, once it grows too tall for your reach, the task becomes herculean.

Delay is dangerous. Have you forgotten that nursery rhyme: Tick says the clock/Tick-tick/What you have to do/Do quick”!

Iran is unapologetically, unabashedly, and undeniably a sworn foe of the State of Israel – in the same league with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

They want the destruction of Israel and have sworn NEVER to recognise it; neither as a sovereign and independent state nor its right to exist.

And they have their justifications: The way and manner the State of Israel was created in 1948 by the Western Powers on a land the Palestinians believed was theirs and the fact that Israel was also favoured with a disproportionate portion of the land.

According to Google, “The Jewish State allocated to the Jews, who constituted a third of the population and owned 7% of the land, was to receive 56% of Mandatory Palestine, a slightly larger area to accommodate the increasing number of Jews who would immigrate there”.

The portion left for the Palestinians – West Bank and Gaza Strip – was also disjointed. Unable to stomach this “daylight injustce”, as someone had described it, the Palestinians, supported by some Arab/Middle East countries, have fought wars against Israel but with every war, won by Israel, they have lost more territories out of the measly ones they originally got.

Not only that, the other Arab/Middle East countries supporting them have also lost territories to Israel. These are called the “occupied territories”.

Israel has seized portions after portions of what was originally allocated to the Palestinians and has built “settlements” there for its citizens.

Resolution after resolution by the UN censoring Israel and ordering it back to its original UN boundaries have been spurned by the Jewish State.

Israel’s backbone is the United States, Britain and the other Western Powers that have given the Jewish State military, financial, diplomatic, and moral support.

The Achilles’ heel of the Palestinians and their backers is their lack of unity as well as military inferiority to their opponents.

With the backing of the superpowers, Israel has also developed into a military power of its own, able to go solo on occasions, even when its backers urge restraint.

So, if Israel would not heed the superpowers’ call for restraint, is it Nigeria’s tepid call that amounts to a mere irritation, at best, that it will heed?

Seeing the hopelessness of their situation, many Arab countries have negotiated peace with Israel; thereby recognising its right to exist as a sovereign and independent state.

Some others have not said so openly but have desisted from openly antagonising it.

The recent fall of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has further depleted the ranks of the countries vigorously opposed to Israel.

Iran, undeterred, has continued the struggle, reasoning that it must be militarily strong enough not only to withstand Israel but also to stand a chance of achieving her goal against it.

The only road to that objective is for it to become a nuclear-power nation.

Therefore, Iran has feverishly pursued its nuclear arms project, insisting that it is for peaceful purposes while those opposed to it believe it is not.

To Israel and its backers, therefore, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is a task that must be done. To Iran on the other hand, to acquire the nuke is also a mission that must be accomplished!

But, of course, we cannot overlook the original injustice that has made the land of Palestine the theatre of horrendous wars and bloodshed since 1948 and the initial rejection of the UN two-state policy and the right of Israel to exist by the Palestinians and their backers.

We cannot but also note the ceaseless violation of international law by Israel and its backers.

Having said that, international relations are power relations in the real sense of the word. The strong and powerful have their way while the weak suffer what they must, until they, too, are strong enough to upturn the applecart.

As Rousseau admonished, “The strong is never strong enough to be always the master unless he transforms strength into right and obedience into duty”.

We have seen the rise and fall of empires and yesterday’s superpowers today do folow-follow and yes-sir to the new sheriffs in town.

Who says the balance of forces will not change in Palestine or the Middle East in years, decades or centuries to come?

Gone were the days when Nigeria commanded a powerful and influential voice in the international arena; when we were a very important member of the Non-Aligned Nations (which itself has gone into oblivion); and when we could ask a sitting US president to shut up and stop dictating to African leaders!

Gone were the days when Africa was the cornerstone of our foreign policy and we championed the decolonisation efforts in other parts of the continent; when we nationalised British-owned companies and led the fight against apartheid colonialism in southern Africa, earning us the distinguished position of a Frontline State in the battle!

Gone were the days when we almost single-handedly championed ECOMOG and brought peace to battle-ravaged Liberia and Sierra Leone!

Gone were the days of Pax Nigeriana! Gone were the days when African nations catch cold and the international community takes notice anytime we sneeze.

Today, minnows like Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso poke their fingers in the eye of the “Giant of Africa” A giant with the feet of clay!

Economic power feeds military power and, together, both translate into powerful nations with a voice in international affairs.

Run-down and decrepit countries like Nigeria are jokers if they jostle for attention or relevance when superpower nations are talking or doing their own thing.

The best we can do at the moment is put our head down, like China did, and work our way up without making any useless noise and flexing muscles that we do not possess, which can only draw unwarranted attention to us with dire consequences!!

By Bola BOLAWOLE, Chairman of Punch Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief

Opinion

Tegbe’s 24-Hour Energy Zones and the Shift From Megawatts to Money

Published

1 week ago

October 2, 2026

Mariam Balogun

By Sufuyan Ojeifo,

There is a point at which a country’s electricity problem ceases to be merely an electricity problem. It becomes a problem of economic geography.

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Where can factories operate with confidence? Where can businesses plan beyond the next appearance of a generator? Where can hospitals, schools, technology companies, markets and households begin to organise their lives around the reasonable expectation that electricity will be there?

This is the thinking behind the latest initiative from the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, to develop what the Federal Government calls Energy Zones – defined corridors where homes, businesses and industries could receive stable, 24-hour electricity.

The proposed zones cover the Lagos axis, the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano corridor and the Enugu-Port Harcourt corridor. Tegbe’s latest move is a meeting with selected electricity distribution companies to begin working through what it would take to make the idea real.

At first glance, it sounds like another promise of uninterrupted electricity in a country that has heard too many such promises. However, there is something more consequential in the architecture of the proposal.

Tegbe is asking Nigerians to look at the power problem differently.

For years, the national conversation has been dominated by generation. How many megawatts are being produced? How much can the transmission grid carry? How many generating plants are working? These are important questions. But electricity does not become useful simply because it has been generated.

It must travel. It must be received. It must be distributed. And ultimately, somebody must be able to use it. That last part has often been treated as the end of the conversation when, in reality, it is where the economic value of electricity begins.

Tegbe has put the point plainly. The constraint is not limited to generation and transmission; it also includes how much electricity can be taken up and delivered at the distribution end.

The proposed Energy Zones are intended to address precisely that gap while improving commercial demand and the revenue performance of the distribution companies.

There is an important idea here.

Nigeria does not necessarily have to wait for every weakness in the electricity value chain to be solved simultaneously before beginning to create pockets of reliability.

A country of more than 200 million people, with enormous differences in industrial activity, population density and commercial demand, may have to proceed through carefully selected economic corridors while the wider system is repaired.

This is not an argument for abandoning the national grid. It is an argument for making the grid more economically purposeful.

The three corridors selected by the Ministry are revealing. Lagos and its adjoining industrial axis represent perhaps the country’s most concentrated commercial and industrial demand.

The Abuja-Kaduna-Kano corridor connects the political capital with major commercial and industrial centres in the North. Enugu-Port Harcourt links important commercial, manufacturing and energy-producing communities in the South-East and South-South.

These are not simply lines on a power map. They are lines on Nigeria’s economic map. That distinction matters.

For too long, Nigerians have experienced electricity largely as a household inconvenience. The light goes off. The generator comes on. A business buys diesel. A manufacturer factors self-generation into production costs. A hospital makes contingency arrangements.

A young entrepreneur learns, often painfully, that the real price of electricity is not what appears on the bill but what it costs to keep the business alive when the supply fails.

A reliable electricity corridor changes that equation.

If a factory knows that a particular industrial cluster has dependable power, investment decisions begin to change.

If a commercial district can plan around predictable electricity, operating costs become easier to manage.

If businesses can depend on supply for most of the day, generators can move from being the first line of defence to being what they were always supposed to be: backup.

This is where Tegbe’s technocratic instincts may prove significant.

His background is not that of a career power-sector operator. His professional experience has largely been in consulting, fiscal and economic reform, institutional transformation and advisory work. That background has been visible in his early approach to the ministry – diagnosis, audits, financial questions, infrastructure bottlenecks, and attempts to identify where one part of the system is preventing another from functioning properly.

His Energy Zones proposal fits that pattern. It treats the electricity market less as a single machine waiting for one dramatic repair and more as a system of interconnected constraints that can be isolated, diagnosed and addressed.

Tegbe had already identified the three corridors as priorities for grid stabilisation, with technical audits intended to establish the condition of critical infrastructure. The latest engagement with DisCos suggests that the idea is now moving beyond technical diagnosis towards the more difficult question of how distribution will work within those corridors.

That is where the hard work begins.

A 24-hour power zone cannot be created by a press statement. It requires generation that is available when needed, transmission capacity that can carry it, distribution infrastructure capable of receiving it, transformers and feeders that can withstand the load, metering that properly captures consumption, customers willing and able to pay, and a commercial structure in which the various participants have an incentive to keep the system working.

It also requires protection. Vandalism and energy theft do not respect administrative boundaries. Neither do faulty equipment, unpaid bills or poor collection practices. Tegbe himself has acknowledged that the sector’s problems reinforce one another. Weak collections affect the market. Market weakness affects maintenance and gas payments. Unreliable supply in turn depresses collections.

This is why the Energy Zone experiment, if it is to succeed, must be judged by more than the number of hours electricity is available.

The real test will be whether reliability begins to produce economic consequences. Does industrial output increase? Do businesses spend less on self-generation? Does investment respond? Do DisCos collect more because customers are receiving a service they can trust? Does the government recover enough value from improved commercial activity to justify further infrastructure investment?

Those are the questions that should eventually accompany the glossy language of 24-hour power.

And there is another question that Tegbe and the Federal Government will have to confront: what happens outside the zones?

Nigeria cannot become a collection of electrically privileged corridors surrounded by communities waiting indefinitely for their turn.

The logic of concentrating investment in high-demand areas can be defended economically, especially if the resulting commercial activity strengthens the wider electricity market.

But the strategy will ultimately have to demonstrate how successful zones become stepping stones towards broader reliability.

That is the difference between an experiment and a system.

There is also a danger in admiring the architecture of reform from the comfort of an office.

It has to be said here that the statement issued by the minister’s media aide was long on ambition and conspicuously short on the details that matter. No timeline. No capacity targets. No specific investment figures. It is the kind of announcement that has, historically, been the precursor to nothing at all.

So Nigerians should watch the idea with interest, but also with the healthy scepticism that comes from decades of promises about electricity.

The minister deserves a measure of credit for at least diagnosing an important part of the illness.

For once, the conversation has shifted from the head to the feet – from generation to distribution, from megawatts to money.

At the same time, the Nigerian people have been given blueprints before. They have learned to admire the drawings while the building crumbles.

The Energy Zones remain a proposal. The government has not yet announced the detailed capacity requirements, implementation timetable or precise infrastructure investments that would make 24-hour supply possible.

That is not necessarily a fatal flaw. It may simply mean the idea is still being worked out.

But it does mean that the language of 24-hour power should be treated as an aspiration until it is matched by the machinery of implementation.

Yet the proposal deserves attention because it reflects a potentially important shift in the way the power problem is being conceived.

Nigeria may not fix its electricity crisis in one heroic sweep. It may have to build reliability corridor by corridor, demand centre by demand centre, and economic cluster by economic cluster.

There is nothing inherently glamorous about such work. It is engineering, finance, regulation, distribution and relentless attention to the weak link in the chain. But perhaps that is precisely the point.

The country has spent decades waiting for the great national electricity breakthrough.

Tegbe’s emerging approach suggests something less dramatic and potentially more practical: make a few economically critical parts of the system work properly, learn from them, strengthen the model, and expand it.

The success of that approach will ultimately be measured not in speeches or megawatts, but in what Nigerians can do with the electricity when it arrives.

Does the factory run a second shift? Does the business hire more workers? Does the hospital keep its equipment running through the night? Does the young entrepreneur stop budgeting for diesel and start budgeting for growth?

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That is where the real power story begins. And that is the standard against which Tegbe’s Energy Zones should ultimately be judged: not by whether 24-hour power sounds impressive in a press release, but by whether the lights stay on long enough for Nigerians to build something with them.