Yusuf Tuggar, minister of foreign affairs, says Nigeria will not pick sides as world powers struggle for global dominance.
Tuggar spoke to MSNBC, a US news outlet, in an interview uploaded to his X page on Monday night.
In the face of growing anti-Western sentiments in many African nations, China has increased its funding programmes and major infrastructure projects on the continent.
Russia has also also been making fresh inroads into the continent, capitalising on the expulsion of US and French troops from Sahel countries.
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The development caused northern leaders to ask President Bola Tinubu to reject alleged proposals from the US government to site military bases in Nigeria.
However, the US government denied the reports.
Tuggar said Nigeria is wary of Africa becoming the ground for power contestations as global dominance is always in a state of flux. He, however, maintained that “our outlook is that of strategic autonomy”.
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“We get along with everyone,” he added.
“We also, of course, have a history of non-alignment, but we are democratic. We have had seven successive elections since 1999, and we don’t want to see any private military companies or mercenaries in our… on our continent.
“Nigeria successfully tackled the insecurity and conflict in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, leading ECOMOG, and now we’re doing it with the multinational joint task force, along with Niger, with Cameroon, with Chad.
“And we feel that’s the way forward, as opposed to exogenous solutions. We would rather endogenous solutions that are supported with… by countries like America that have been great partners to Nigeria and many others on the African continent.”
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The minister also spoke on Nigeria’s need to become a permanent member of the United Nations security council.
Tuggar said Nigeria’s position as the largest democracy on the African continent, and the success of its military in degrading the Boko Haram insurgents, are proof of its capacity to belong to the council.
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