Former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Bola Akinterinwa, has said that\u00a0\u00a0there were no guarantees \u00a0that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, who had accused the Ex- service chiefs of crimes against humanity would accept the former service chiefs as diplomats.<\/p>\n
He spoke on a\u00a0PUNCH Online<\/em>\u00a0interview on Thursday.<\/p>\n He stated, \u201cThe main problem any of the (former) service chiefs may have is that the international community have been speculating that they have violated human right, that under their watch some people have been killed recklessly without due regard to both international law and international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt depends on the country they will be posted to. If you send a service chief as an ambassador to the United States for instance, what will you expect? US is one of the countries that have accused the service chiefs of having violated human rights. Do you think they will be able to survive in that case in terms of negotiating skill? Not likely. If you send to Britain, the same<\/p>\n If you send to probably Cote D\u2019Ivoire, Togo, Venezuela, all those places where strategic interest do not constitute the issue, in this case, yes, they may do well but you need someone who is very conversant with a very dishonest manner of operating international politics. International politics is very dishonest, everybody is struggling to undermine the other and you need a sophisticated career ambassador,\u201d the diplomat added.<\/p>\n Continuing, Akinterinwa said, \u201cA country can accept and my not accept (an ambassadorial appointee). The obstacle here even though there is rule of reciprocity if we name one and you refuse to accept, we too have the right to reject your own.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it is generally not done. When you present a candidate to a country, rather than writing you a bad letter to say they reject, they may keep quiet. So long silence, no reply simply means rejection. That is the context under which we call them persona non grata \u2013 that is unwanted person.\u201d<\/p>\n The former NIIA director general said Nigeria needs diplomatic careerists to engage in diplomatic nothing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Bola Akinterinwa, has said that\u00a0\u00a0there were no guarantees \u00a0that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n