Nigeria’s repositioning of its diplomacy from an Africa-centered to a citizen-centered one under the Yar’Adua administration, represents a monumental departure and paradigm shift from an old foreign policy tradition. However, a more careful rather than vacuous conception of what it should look like and how it can be practiced is required. This paper interrogates the new policy focus and explores the American citizen diplomacy variation to see what can be learnt by Nigeria in implementing the policy. The new policy thrust does not however, put a stop to Nigeria’s Africa-centerpiece policy; and viewed from a realist perspective, the citizen-centered foreign policy could be engineered and implemented to make Nigeria regain its enviable image and more properly achieve its regional and continental leadershi
