The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA), is today extending its Roundtable Series to Nigeria – Pakistan version. The dialogue session lasting two hours will commence by 11 am local (West African) time. It will be both on site and by zoom.
Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan
President Buhari of Nigeria
For the two hours, diverse intellectuals and practitioners of global International Relations, (IRs is currently undergoing a name crisis) would be looking into the plausible shapes and contours of the relationship between the two interesting countries.
Both are third world countries which could be understood in the sense that they are none of the first set of nation states that emerged after the now disputed Peace of Westphalia and are also none of the second wave of states that emerged particularly in North America. Rather, both are products of the postcolonial set of states in Africa, Asia and Latin America, collectively called the Third World.
But while Pakistan is a nuclear armed power and therefore a key player in international security, Nigeria is not in that sense. Another area of contrast is the strength of statism in the two. While Pakistan’s self-understanding is that of the most exceptional state in the world, Nigeria is not seen to have that self-understanding, with some citizens even calling Nigeria a mistake. Of course, one is in South East Asia while the other is in West Africa.
The last contrast is Pakistan always aligned with one great power or the other with Nigeria seeing itself as a champion of non-alignment.
This is thus bound to be one of the most exciting NIIA Roundtable sessions in terms of how scholars, diplomats, commanders, students of global politics and other participants from diverse centres of discourse in the two countries frame the future of interaction between the two global demographic powers in the 21st century.
