Feasibility of Nigeria’s Future Membership of the “Francophonie”

Abstract

Nigeria’s membership of the Francophonie, the theme of this paper presented at the Retreat organized by the NIIA and Nigeria’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee at Victoria Island, Lagos, tagged: “Charting a new Foreign Policy Thrust for Nigeria” (June 1-3, 2014), seeks to examine the urgency of, and the modalities for actualizing renewed ties of Nigeria with France and her former colonies the world over, who make up the “French Commonwealth”. The new French politico-cultural family called Francophonie came into being with the inauguration of the famous Agence de Coopération culturelle et technique (ACCT) on March 20, 1970, in Niamey, Niger Republic. Of what significance is the proposed future membership of the Francophonie to the foreign policy of Black Africa’s most populous Nation, which Capital, Abuja, serves as the permanent Secretariat of the 16-member sub-regional body, ECOWAS, dominated by French-speaking countries? Cameroun, one of Nigeria’s neighbors, although located in the Central African sub-region, is a permanent member of the Francophonie while still belonging to the British Commonwealth in line with her bilingual posture, and Ghana, a traditional member of the Commonwealth like Nigeria, became an Associate Member of the Francophonie in 2006. Desirable as the idea is, this writer opines that in view of Nigeria’s cultural and linguistic heterogeneity, and more importantly, in order to ensure that the cultural identity of the World’s most populous black Nation is not compromised, her future membership of the Francophonie, if approved by legislation, should be premised on a cultural agreement to be signed by Nigeria and France, compelling French and Frenchspeaking Nationals to study and research into Nigerian culture and either of her three major languages - Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa (WAZOBIA), while French becomes henceforth Nigeria’s second official language and a compulsory subject in WAEC examination.