-By Abdul Mahmud
Nigeria has finally plunged into the depths of morass. Deep and troubling depths, difficult to climb out. The new list of ambassadorial nominees tells a familiar story. It is the story of a country that refuses to rise. A country that recycles its worst. A country that decorates failure and calls it service. The President has sent a fresh batch of names to the Senate. Thirty two in all. They join an earlier set of three. It should be a moment of pride for our country. It should be a moment to showcase our best. Instead, it is an embarrassing parade of deadwood and political survivors who have little business representing a country in need of credibility. Look closely at the list. Former governors who left no mark at home. Former commissioners who are remembered only for patronage. Former legislators who saw public office as personal property. Election riggers who supervised the erosion of trust in the ballot. People rejected by their states but rewarded at the national level. This is not a diplomatic corps. This is a retirement home for the politically displaced persons of dubious interest and politicians of particular concern.
The diplomatic service is the face of a country. It is the voice of a people. It is the place where competence matters. It is the place where integrity stands firm. Countries rise or fall on the quality of the people they send abroad. That is why serious countries take diplomatic postings seriously. They understand the weight of consular and diplomatic representations. Nigeria does the opposite. We treat embassies as political rehabilitation centres. We treat foreign missions as consolation prizes. We reward political loyalty. We punish merit. We sideline career officers. We insult the service. We diminish the country.
Look at how other countries behave.
The United States sends seasoned diplomats with years of service. Sometimes it sends political nominees but even those are men and women with serious achievements. They are people with policy minds. People nuanced in policy. People who can open doors abroad, and in promotion of their countries’ national interest. France sends its finest administrators. China sends disciplined technocrats who understand the world. India sends highly trained officers drawn from its foreign service elite. South Korea sends competent professionals who understand trade, investment and technology. These countries understand diplomacy as a strategic asset. They understand that ambassadors carry the weight of national interest. They know that representation is a serious business. They know that no country rises when mediocrities carry its passport across borders.
Nigeria stands alone in its contempt for excellence. Its rulers insist that political actors who have failed at home somehow succeed abroad. They believe that those who ruined local institutions will protect national interests in foreign capitals. This is an illusion built on arrogance. It is a tragedy built on notoriously poor habits. The damage is visible. Many of our missions are weak. Some are directionless. Some are barely functional. They cannot protect citizens. They cannot attract investment. They cannot sell the country. They cannot build serious bilateral ties. They cannot speak the language of global diplomacy. They cannot engage because they do not understand the issues. The result? Our passport is treated with suspicion across the world. Our missions cannot help. They lack the skill. They lack the influence. They lack the respect. Nigeria is big but its diplomatic voice is small. It whispers at foreign tables where others speak loudly. It watches while others act. The new list promises more decline. Rapid decline.
There are career officers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who have trained for decades. They understand protocol. They understand negotiation. They understand the UN system. They understand the African Union. They understand the slow and patient work of diplomacy. In pursuit of tokenism, a few career diplomats are thrown into the appointment mix, while many watch politicians with no knowledge of international diplomacy take positions meant for professionals. It is demoralising. It is destructive. It weakens an institution that is already fragile. But, there is a grave cost to mediocrity. Every bad envoy carries Nigeria’s weaknesses abroad. Every failed politician posted to a foreign capital worsens our country’s poor reputation. Foreign governments know who is serious and who is not. They know when a country sends its best. They know when a country parades deadwood and sends political handshake dealers abroad to man its missions.
Nigeria keeps promoting payback tokenism. Nigeria keeps sending liabilities abroad.
Worse still, Nigeria keeps sending men and women whose only qualification is their usefulness to the President. This is the tragedy of a country caught in the cycle of low expectations and low standards. There is a moral problem as well. Some of the nominees helped produce the electoral chaos that Nigerians now live with. Some supervised flawed elections. Professor Mahmood Yakubu is one example. Some defended impunity with unmatched zeal. Reno Omokri and Femi Fani-Kayode stand as its most enthusiastic evangelists, men who turned public discourse into theatrics and acrobatics. They did not merely excuse the excesses of power. They flipped. They flopped. They flip-flopped. They somersaulted around truth, to the point of eating their vomits. They justified impunity. They amplified falsehoods as if truth were an inconvenience. They embraced propaganda as a vocation. In a country struggling to rebuild trust in its institutions, their voices have too often deepened cynicism and normalised the erosion of accountability. Some weakened public trust. To reward them with diplomatic postings is to endorse their conduct. It sends a message that the state has no ethical core. It signals that public office is not a service but a spoil of war.
The world is changing. Diplomacy is now about technology, climate change, migration, security, trade and innovation. Nations that understand this are recruiting the brightest minds. They are building strong foreign services. They are investing in knowledge. They are preparing for a complex future. Nigeria is doing none of this. Nigeria is moving backward while others are moving forward. There are Nigerians who can serve well. Distinguished scholars. Former international civil servants. Former judges. Entrepreneurs who built serious institutions. Career officers who have risen through merit. Professionals who have excelled across the world. They are not on the list. They are not considered. They are not invited. They are not valued. They are simply not wanted by power. They are not listening to scholars and practitioners in the field. Even if they don’t want to listen to the former Indian diplomat and scholar, Kishan Rana, who has written extensively on diplomatic professionalism and appointment criteria, our country has the respected Professor Bolaji Akinyemi who has consistently argued that the selection of ambassadors should be grounded in merit, professionalism, and national interest rather than political patronage. In his view, diplomacy is a specialised field that demands competence, experience, cultural sensitivity, and a deep understanding of international affairs. He stresses that career diplomats, trained within the foreign service system, are best positioned to represent the state effectively and maintain continuity in foreign policy. While acknowledging that political appointments may sometimes be unavoidable, he warns that excessive politicisation weakens professionalism, erodes institutional memory, and diminishes a country’s global standing. His overarching position is that ambassadorial appointments must prioritise expertise and integrity to protect the country’s diplomatic credibility.
These ambassadorial appointments are a mirror. They show us what our rulers think of Nigeria. They don’t take Nigeria seriously, as the poet, Odia Ofeimun highlighted with intellectual verve and flourish two decades ago. They show us how little is expected of our country. They show us how low the bar has fallen. A country that wants greatness must send great people to represent it. A country that sends its failures abroad will receive the respect such failure deserves. The Senate will confirm the nominees. It always does. It will ask a few questions. It will praise the list. It will claim that the nominees are qualified. Then, it will ask the ambassadorial nominees to “take a bow and go”. It will then move on. Nigeria will move on as well but in the wrong direction. Another opportunity for progress will be lost. Nigeria deserves better. Nigerians deserve better. The world deserves to see our country takes itself seriously. A country that knows that dignity and competence matter. A country that believes that representation is sacred.
One day our country will rise above the needless elephantine burden it chooses to place on its own back. The weight is heavy. It is the weight of recycled failures. It is the weight of institutions drained of confidence. It is the weight of a country that keeps dragging the carcass of its worst habits into a future that demands clarity, courage and competence. No country grows by carrying the load of its own mediocrity. No Republic moves forward when it insists on hauling along with the same tired figures who helped slow its steps. Nigeria must learn to travel light. It must learn to shed the burdens that weaken its ambition. Only then can it walk with purpose among countries that have already learnt that progress begins with choices that honour the present and protect the future.
Today is not that day for our failing Republic.