Government Questions and Answers

Nigeria teamed up with other developing countries to assert a neutral posture under the platform of Non-aligned Movement. Non-alignment is the idea or notion of a group of nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean and Europe to be neutral in the cold war between the Western Capitalist and it Eastern Socialist powers.

It should be noted that many African countries have found it difficult to implement the principles of Non-alignment as required. This is mostly due to internal political problems which force them to look for aids and military assistance from either of the blocs. For instance Nigeria and Russia during Nigeria and Biafra war which in most cases referred to as Nigeria civil war.

Nigeria's membership of the UN complements her foreign policy in the area of multilateral diplomacy.

The set of policies on the basis of which countries interact with one another is called foreign policy.
It could also be defined as the sum total of decision formulated by the government of a country to manipulate the international environment to attain certain national interest or objective.

Nigeria's commitment to the liberation of Africa could best be seen in her policy towards South Africa and Angola. The administration of Murtala Mohammed recognized Agostinho Neto's Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA0 at the expense of US and South Africa's support of UNITA AND FNLA played a decisive role in Angolan independence. In the year 1980, Shehu Shagari's administration offered N10 million to Zimbabwe on their independence celebration while Buhari's administration donated undisclosed amount of money to SWAPO of Namibia and the ANC of South Africa.

A State with a hegemonic political party is one in which there is only one dominant party. In this system, one party is firmly established in office. The party has hegemony, that is, it enjoys unchallenged authority. The law does not operate formally against any opposition, but clearly the state concerned is effectively single-party for longer period of many years. For example, South Africa was an example of a hegemonic party. There, the National party came into power in 1948, and it only left when Dr. Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994.