Throughout a country’s history, many men and women have held public offices and titles. Many such persons in Nigeria make this their claim to fame. However, if their individual and collective contributions had been significant, our country would be in better shape than it is now. Few have moved beyond “being” to “doing,” leaving indelible, motivating legacies. Few people have the ability for ideas – a deep, thoughtful intellectual mind that serves as the foundation for policy acts, decisions, and recommendations that have long-term impact. Even fewer can remake themselves after leaving government and remain relevant for a long time.

Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi CFR, Professor of Political Science, Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs from 1975 to 1983, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria from 1985 to 1987, Member of the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Committee in 2007, and Deputy Chairman of the 2014 National Conference, is one of these individuals. On January 4, 1942, he was born in Ilesha, now in Osun State, as the son of Rev. James Akinyemi, a well-known school administrator and politician. My task here as a younger friend, for whom he was a role model in my adolescence, and as a citizen who has known him for 32 years, is not to recite his extensive and illustrious curriculum vitae. This is to interpret that CV and its owner, to give my view of why and how Bolaji Akinyemi accomplished the feats he did and what they mean for Nigeria, Africa and the black race, and why he still commands strong public influence and attention long after he left public office.

This man’s knowledge of the globe is encyclopaedic. He had a Kissingerian impact on Nigerian foreign policy at a period when our country was still a major player in global affairs. That influence, achieved in just two years as foreign minister, was no accident. Although he had previously led the NIIA for eight years and was well known in foreign policy circles, preparation and hard work met opportunity, resulting in an adventurous career in foreign policy, aided by a keen mind and strong worldview.
After attending secondary school at Igbobi College in Lagos and Christ’s School in Ado Ekiti, Akinyemi earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA in 1964. At the time, America was embroiled in a Cold War with the communist Soviet Union, the Vietnam War was raging, and America’s contentious deployment of soldiers to the Asian conflict was turning into a foreign policy quagmire. During Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were approved in fast succession, marking historic advances in black Americans’ political rights. These events provided a historical framework for a serious African student of the world and his race’s place in it.

He later attended graduate school at Tufts University’s famed Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts, where he earned a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy in 1966. In 1933, Tufts University and Harvard University collaborated to establish the Fletcher School. Its impressive alumni list includes presidents of state and government, diplomats, intelligence agents, and executives from major organizations. It is a pedigree that unlocks doors in international capitals. I understand. Inspired by Akinyemi’s impact at NIIA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and with his backing through a letter of recommendation that helped me earn the Joan Gillespie Fellowship, I took a Master’s degree at The Fletcher School in 1992  and joined the United Nations Service immediately afterwards. My selection later in life as a professor on the faculty of The Fletcher School in 2015 after my employment at the Central Bank of Nigeria was something that gave Akinyemi a lot of pride. More than anyone, he recognized its significance.

Akinyemi went on to study at the University of Oxford from 1966 to 1969, bagging a Doctor of Philosophy at the age of 27. He met and eventually married Rowena Akinyemi, a British citizen. When he returned to Nigeria and became a Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Ibadan, his television interviews and newspaper articles drew the attention of military officers like Murtala Mohammed and Ibrahim Babangida. When Mohammed became Head of State in 1975 following the coup that deposed Gen. Yakubu Gowon and launched a more assertive foreign policy, he appointed Akinyemi as DG of the NIIA.

As foreign minister under Gen. Babangida’s military presidency, Akinyemi developed the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps system, which still functions today. Under the plan, Nigerian professionals give technical expertise and personnel to developing countries. This is an upgraded version of the American Peace Corps. It is a classic and practical projection of “soft power,” recognized to be useful in establishing international influence.

Perhaps Akinyemi’s most profound intellectual foreign policy endeavor was the Concert of Medium Powers in global politics, with Nigeria playing an important role in this group of countries. The idea was that 16 regional powers, countries classified as medium powers in international relations based on economic, diplomatic, and other factors, would act proactively to promote stability and conflict resolution while also serving as an informal counterweight to the dominance of the Great Powers, who were and continue to be permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Concert will also assist to promote Nigeria as a global power outside Africa and the fight against apartheid in South Africa at the time. It would address cross-cutting issues. The Concert, subsequently known as the Lagos Forum, began with an exploratory gathering in Lagos in 1987 and would eventually involve countries such as Austria, Brazil, Mexico, India, Malaysia, and Sweden.

However, probably because Akinyemi launched the Concert of Medium Powers late in his term, the ambitious concept did not survive his departure from the Babangida administration. This was unfortunate. If the project had evolved to its full potential, Nigeria would have been better positioned to become one of the Emerging Market economies (rather than a Frontier Market) that Brazil, Mexico, India, and Malaysia have unquestionably become. We would have been better positioned to eventually join the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, forming BRINK. And we would probably have a seat at the table of the G20 middle economic powers from which we are excluded. South Africa is, again, the only African country that is a member. Bolaji Akinyemi saw tomorrow through the lens of the world and Nigeria’s potential role in it.

Akinyemi has made substantial contributions to internal politics as well. Through no fault of his, however, Nigeria’s destructive national political culture, which has short-circuited our development, rendered his similarly weighty contributions in this arena stillborn for the most part. The Uwais panel’s forward-looking recommendations for electoral reform were never implemented. The historic report of President Jonathan’s National Conference languishes in archives. Commentators have labeled him as a “bow-tie diplomat” and “professor of significance,” and he was also a key figure in the campaign against Gen. Sani Abacha’s tyranny. He was an active member of the National Democratic Coalition while in exile.

In addition to his status as an elder statesman, Bolaji Akinyemi is still in demand as a public commentator. Aside from the rare newspaper interview, he now primarily uses visual media. “TruMyeyes,” his video and television series about world affairs, is a must-see for anyone interested in international affairs. From the Taliban’s success in conflict-ridden Afghanistan to Archbishop’s life and death, Desmond Tutu, from the role of sports in international relations to the implications of the rise of China as a world power, Akinyemi’s brilliant insights into world affairs do not disappoint. Can we rekindle Akinyemi’s erudite understanding of the world on a large scale of public policy, debate, and understanding, especially in a time when technology has made the world a truly global village but sovereign imperatives of national interest still reign? The age of COVID-19 and the politics of vaccine production, distribution, and travel bans provide an opportunity for such reflection.

Bolalji Akinyemi stands out among Nigeria’s foreign ministers for his intellectual prowess and influence. I consider him to be more of the realist school of international relations, which focuses on the world as it is and how our country may gain a competitive advantage, rather than the world as it should be. The late international relations researcher Hedley Bull, who taught at Oxford and my PhD alma mater, the London School of Economics, believed that we live in a “anarchical society” of nations.

Akinyemi understood and worked to advance Nigeria’s destiny as the world’s largest black-race country. Domestic politics hold the key to Nigeria’s destiny. Its brokenness squanders the brilliance of many men and women in our country. We must consequently return to the leadership of individuals with ideas, such as Akinyemi. I wish he was as successful in politics as he was in diplomacy. Nigeria may have fared better. But he led and continues to live a full life. Cheers to him at 80.