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The Political Economy Of International Peace Support Operations: Some Lessons For Nigeria
Abstract
Nigeria, in her bid to promote international peace and security took a bold step in using military strategy in advancing her foreign policy objectives. Since independence, Nigeria has maintained a landmark achievement in the area of contributing to international peace support operations. Nigeria has been part of virtually every peace support mission embarked upon by the UN and OAU (now AU) since 1960. Nigeria is also the largest contributor in finance, equipment and personnel to ECOWAS peace support force (ECOMOG). There have also been peace support missions on bilateral arrangements between Nigeria and other world nations. In this paper we examined the political economy of Nigeria’s peace-keeping military operations. How much resources were expended? And how much lives were lost? This research makes it clear that Nigeria’s experiences in peace support operations has shown that national resources (human and material) have been expended without commensurate returns even in terms of her national interest needs. This tally well with the foreign policy making of developing states which are largely based on moral suasions rather than objective cost-benefit analysis as those of the developed nations who rather make huge profit and incur no human cost by supplying the equipment and weapons of the peace support forces. This study using the engagement cost value theory and documentary evidence situated in content analysis method draws heavily from earlier works on Nigeria peace support military exploits. The focus here is at stimulating policy makers to study and learn from the achievements and mistakes of past events and plan adequately for future military engagements so as to achieve Nigeria’s national interest rather than mere empty fame-seeking. For clarity and easy comprehension, the work is departmentalized into eight sections:-introduction, theoretical framework, the concept-peace support operations, background of Nigeria peace support operations, financial and human costs of Nigeria peace support operations, the nexus between Nigeria’s experience in foreign policy and international political economy of PSOs, lessons to learn, and conclusions.
