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This article deals with the role of Nigeria and Ghana in ECOWAS specific fields of integration since its creation in 1975. It showed the relevance of Nigeria as a regional leader and the importance of Ghana as a key factor in ECOWAS integration process, and their respective foreign policy stand towards West African integration process in the present century. In order to evaluate and present the role of Nigeria and Ghana in ECOWAS integration process, the authors set out three main tasks to actualize it. The first task is to identify the main areas of ECOWAS integration process, namely: economic integration, security formation and political reformation using qualitative methodological analysis to achieve this task. The second task is the review of ECOWAS operational structure, which explained how Nigeria was able to exert its hegemony status in ECOWAS, and how Ghana is able to remain useful in ECOWAS despite the overwhelming influence of Nigeria. The third task is using historical analytical method to present facts and explain the various contributions by Nigeria and Ghana in ECOWAS economic liberation process, peacekeeping operations, and political interventions in ECOWAS member states which have brought relative peace and security to the region. The authors draw conclusion based on the result of the research analysis that, in spite of ECOWAS compositions which include the Francophone countries in the region and its leadership structure, Nigeria and Ghana have led by example, by devoting much attention and commitment to the ECOWAS integration process through mediations, peacekeeping, political intervention and economic cooperation.

In diplomacy, the interests of an individual nation largely determine the form of relations it maintains with other states. This gives credence to the notion that there is neither a permanent friend nor permanent enemy in international relations; rather, it is interests of a country which is permanent. In the pursuance of their national interests, diplomatic relations between Lagos and Moscow were formally established on November 25, 1960 soon after Nigeria’s gaining in-dependence. The embassy of the Soviet Union was established in Lagos in 1961, while Nigeria established its embassy in Moscow in 1962. On December 26, 1991 the Soviet upper chamber under the chairmanship of A. Alim-shanov (Declaration № 142-H) decided to discontinue the Soviet Union existence as a state. This was in line with the outcome of the meeting of December 8, 1991 between Boris Yeltsin (Russia), Leonid Kravchuk (Ukraine) and Stalinislav Shushkevich (Belarus) that later came to be known as the Belovezha Accords of 1991. Russia, a prominent union republic of the for-mer Soviet Union, gained international recognition as the successor to the Soviet Union which thereafter took up both the assets and liabilities of the former Soviet Union. Nigeria-Russia Bilateral Relations (NRBR) had been developing over the years and cul-minated in the visit of Nigeria’s President, Olusegun Obasanjo to Russia in 2001 and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s visit to Nigeria in 2009. Undoubtedly, the NRBR has had both good and diffi cult experience. This paper is an assessment of NRBR and it provides answers to the questions of the desirability and necessity of strong Nigeria-Russia diplomatic ties. Besides, it makes recommendations on how the two countries can elevate their bilateral relations to a more functional cooperation in the key and strategic sectors.

Nigeria is one of the first African states to be confronted with the violent Islamist fundamentalist group popularly known as Boko Haram. It declared war on the Nigerian secular state in 2009, and implements a program, if successful, to transform the country into an Islamic theocratic state led by sharia (Islamic law), in the country where only half of the population are Muslims. The article starts with clarification of the structure of the Nigerian society from the linguistic perspective, and from the point of view of political cultures of different societies, which were colonized and came under one British colonial rule to 1960. This study analyses the history of Islamist fundamental movements starting from the late 1970s, and focuses on the latest such group - Boko Haram. The authors examine the social, economical, and political causes of the brutal violent conflict in the northeastern Nigeria, which was the heartland of the pre-colonial Kanem Bornu state and the center of Kanuri national culture. Finally, the authors identify social and political causes of the developmental chain of Salafist movements, particularly from 2009 when Boko Haram declared war against the Nigerian state in order to transform it into an Islamic caliphate; thus, there was a catastrophic human rights violation by the Nigerian Army in the name of fighting the Boko Haram terrorists. The authors do not suggest any decisions and do not provide any final conclusions - they admit the uncertainty of the current situation in Nigeria and call for the further research of internal politics tendencies under the new government led by President Buhari, who can either continue to solve the problems of the country by aggressive military means as two previous presidents of Nigeria, or, on the contrary, can prefer peaceful and conciliatory measures.

The recent rise in global terrorism is alarming, but it also reaffirms the failure of our purely hard military approach to counter the phenomenon. This paper analyzes soft power as a means to combating terrorism, with the role of education, religion and international cooperation. The case of Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group operating in Northern Nigeria, is analyzed. This group has been attracting increasing levels of attention. The group is becoming ever more daring and violent. It is unlikely that Boko Haram will be defeated totally through military means. “Soft Power” will play a crucial role in our ability to attract the moderates and deny the extremists new recruits. Islamic education is viewed as a key instrument of these “soft power” counter-terrorism strategy. Islamic education refers to the totality of the upbringing of an individual within the content and context of Islam. The Almajiri system of education in Nigeria is analyzed in the article. Besides education, international cooperation is analyzed with the special focus on Moroccan experience of learning of Sunni Maliki jurisprudence and Achaari theology. The author underlines that many African countries requested Morocco to share its experiences in the education of Imams and signed several cooperation agreements.

The subject of this article is actual problems of social state and constitutionally-legal regulating usage of mineral resources in some countries of the African continent that play the greater role in the economy of the region and are highly appreciable at the world source market. In this sense the most actual is the experience of such countries as Nigeria, Angola and Kenya.