From D.C. With Love: The American Mission in Abuja

Ambassador Terence McCulley is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, the current Ambassador of the United States to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and a former Ambassador to the Republic of Mali. Beginning his career in the Foreign Service in 1985, his recent posts have taken him from Washington D.C., working on the reconstruction of Iraq, to serving as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Togo, Senegal, and Tunisia. He has won four Department of State Superior Honor Awards.

Tell us about the U.S. Mission to Nigeria and why maintaining a healthy relationship between the two nations is so important.

The U.S. Mission to Nigeria is one of the largest in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), the third largest after Kenya and South Africa.

We have seven U.S. Government agencies working here in Abuja and in Lagos, from the Drug Enforcement Administration to the Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, USAID, CDC and Walter Reed Army Hospital. The latter three work on our PEPFAR program, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

It’s a large mission because Nigeria is arguably the most strategic partner in SSA. Nigeria is a nation of 160 million people and is possessed of tremendous oil and gas resources, which are of course important to the United States – it’s our fifth largest supplier of crude oil. But it’s an important strategic relationship because plays a significant role on the regional stage and world stage as a constructive member of the world governing body.

Whether on the United Nations Security Council, working with the U.S. confronting the Libya crisis, responding as the chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire, or as a member of ECOWAS confronting the post-coup crisis in Mali, Nigeria matters. Nigeria’s voice matters. So it is important that we have a strong and constructive relationship with this great country .

What do you do to drive the U.S. mission in Nigeria forward?

We have a large and collaborative Country Team and we are working on things together. My job, in accordance with the instruction letter from President Obama, is to ensure the coordination of all U.S. Government activities in country. That means oversight of our various development programs to make sure that not only American taxpayer dollars are being used in an effective manner, but that we’re achieving our objectives: increasing the number of Nigerians living with HIV on retrovirals, improving the public health in Nigeria, and improving education systems.

We collaborate as a team to provide oversight to these important development programs, but also to engage in a dialogue with the government of Nigeria at the federal level, and the state level, and at the local level. The principle vehicle for this is our Binational Commission.

Established in 2010, the Binational Commission has six working groups that reflect U.S. Government and Nigerian priorities we’ve established together, so there’s good governance and transparency. We’ve worked with government and civil society on the U.S. support for Nigeria’s historic 2011 election and provided support to ensure that Nigeria continues to export crude oil, to improve its production and export of natural gas, to ensure a level playing field, to attract American investment, and to improve the investment climate.

We have a working group in regional security, which looks at how Nigeria can more effectively address the insurgency in the northern part of the country and militancy in the Niger delta. We also have a group on agriculture and food security, which is a huge priority for the current government: they have an agricultural transformation agenda modeled on business practices and we’re looking for opportunities for U.S. investment. And, finally, a group on the Niger Delta, which looks at security and economic development in that very important part of Nigeria.

What duties do you most and least look forward to in maintaining a diplomatic relationship between D.C. and Abuja?

Because of the importance of the strategic relationship there’s really an intense focus from the Washington interagency on Nigeria. We are fortunate to have absolutely solid support on the State Department side from our Bureau of African Affairs, led by one of our most experienced Africanists and the Secretary of State’s chief adviser on Africa.

We have very few issues of contention because President Jonathan’s transformation agenda is very much focused on improved governance, attacking corruption, and improving the investment climate. The problem is that at times there’s a gap between rhetoric and reality.

We need to carry tough messages to the government of Nigeria in order to more effectively combat corruption. For the most part they agree with us;  the least pleasant aspect is the recognition that there is so much that needs to be done in so many different areas, from improvement in the power sector to improvement in the prosecution of corrupt officials or people in the private sector.

The Nigerians recognize that they need to make the efforts that we’re talking about: ending abuses by the security force in the area of human rights in the north. One of the conversations that we’ve had with the government of Nigeria over the last nine months is the need for a more comprehensive approach to the insurgency that’s being conducted in the north by an extremist group under the name Boko Haram, Hausa for ‘Western education in forbidden.’

Our message publicly and with Nigerian government officials at all levels is that the insurgency must be viewed in a more holistic fashion, and the security challenge must be addressed in a way that doesn’t damage property or kill innocent civilians, especially in the largely underdeveloped North. Development challenges need to be addressed in order to not alienate the population that could be allies in the struggle against Boko Haram.

You are working with and managing a diverse group of mission staff, from consular affairs to defense, agriculture, and, to some extent, USAID. How do you build a cohesive team that can form and implement good policies?

The concept of the country team, which functions like a board of directors of Mission Nigeria, is historically a model of interagency collaboration. There is no question that the ambassador, as personal representative of the POTUS and accredited to the head of state, is head of the team.

I try to build leadership by sending a signal to every person on the team, and the mission in general, that their work is valued, important, and recognized. My approach is very much a collaborative one, based on the principle of collegiality – that we are colleagues working together to advance the foreign policy objectives of the U.S. Government in Nigeria, to tell America’s story and represent the American government and people to Nigeria.

This approach gives people confidence that they have the backing of the Chief of Mission: he recognizes their work, will respond to their legitimate resource requests, and is concerned about their material well being.

How do you make recommendations to D.C. that will ultimately be implemented in the way you intended?

There are a variety of ways that we, as a country team, feed into the policy debate in Washington. There are formal ways, like the mission resource plan, an annual mission exercise looking at how we could better achieve our objectives. We also have a reporting function which gives our informed opinion as experts of what’s happening in Nigeria and what that means for U.S. policy.

In addition to those formal mechanisms, there’s email exchange on a daily basis with our backstops, feeding in more informal suggestions about how things are going and what our needs might be.

One of the best examples I’ve seen of the field having an immediate impact on U.S. policy was in the aftermath of the historic April 2011 election. The mission, working very closely with Nigerian Civil Society, implemented a monitoring project funded by USAID where we deployed hundreds of people into the field to observe the election process. Our assessment was that the election, while not perfect, was arguably the best election that Nigeria has ever held in its 51 years of independence, and certainly its best since its return to democracy in 1999.

That day, we had hundreds of people deployed in the field who were sending in, via Blackberry, little reports on what they were seeing, which informed the larger reporting and analysis. Within a week, that assessment informed statements made by the Secretary of State and the President of the United States.

One final question – can you please confirm that I have $300,000.00 waiting to be paid out to me by the Embassy so long as I pay a small $200 Customs Clearance Fee to someone that e-mailed me?

You know, these 419 scams are just appalling – and in the age of the Internet, I think I get emails from friends and colleagues around the world on a weekly basis with the latest. I think my favorite line of what seems to be the boilerplate on these emails is that as a U.S. Ambassador I have “veto power” over customs.

Feature photo: cc/Catholic Church (England and Wales)