Tag: UN

• By Alade Fawole

The Nation’s editorial of October 7, titled “Suspect Campaigns” took positions against the twin issues of debt forgiveness and Security Council permanent membership for Africa that Nigeria canvassed at this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York in September. Of interest to me are the three assertions regarding the quest for UN Security Council permanent seat and to which I hereby respond.

The editorial’s first assertion is that “Security Council permanent membership is vanity fair;” the second is that seeking a permanent seat constitutes at this time “needless distractions, until Nigeria gets right its social, political and economic fundamentals;” and the third is that “after Nigeria must have done its homework…and the result is clear to all…no one can turn down its request for SC permanent membership; not even the United States.”

I beg to disagree with all three assertions.

First, asking for Africa’s inclusion in the hallowed chambers of global decision-making pertaining to the maintenance of international peace and security cannot reasonably be seen as “vanity fair”, for Africa parades several of the conflicts the UN has to deal with. And it was the UN back in 2004 that had kick-started the global debates and discussions on the implementation of the recommendations for comprehensive reforms of both the General Assembly and the Security Council which included expansion of membership of the latter. This was on the strength of the recommendations for comprehensive reforms submitted to the Secretary-General Kofi Annan which he had placed before the General Assembly for consideration for implementation.

It would be recalled that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had set up the 15-member High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in 2003 to look into the future of the UN and make suitable recommendations for necessary reforms for the continued relevance of the organization into the 21st Century as it was about clocking its sixth decade. This was because its Cold War era structure needed to be rejigged to reflect current and unfolding realities in the world. For example, its total membership of less than 60 states at its inception had since increased to 193; Africa, which had only four members then, now has 54; and new great powers have also emerged, therefore the Cold War era structure was no longer tenable if the body would retain relevance into the future.

The Panel’s Report, submitted to the General Assembly in December 2004, recommended two permanent seats without the veto power for Africa. That was two decades ago. African member-states have since then been part of the discussions and consultations on the need to rectify what constitutes injustices to a continent which has 54 members but no permanent representation in the most strategic organ for global decision-making, and had taken a collective position known as the “Ezulwini Consensus” as far back as 2005 on the expansion of the permanent membership and the question of the veto. Now that the global order is experiencing tectonic rumblings, Nigeria as a pre-eminent African state must not allow itself to be left behind just because of its internal problems. All countries have their internal problems!

The second assertion that seeking permanent membership constitutes “needless distractions, until Nigeria gets right its social, political and economic fundamentals” implies that Nigeria should wait to solve its problems completely before engaging in world politics. No country can solve all problems and challenges, since new ones arise every day. Despite Nigeria’s domestic challenges, it has been active in fulfilling the UN objectives and had made enormous sacrifices more than any other African country in maintaining global peace and security, participating in over 40 global and regional peacekeeping operations. It is therefore preposterous to ask Nigeria to wait until it ‘solves all its challenges’ before aspiring to a leadership position in world affairs to represent Africa.

Also, the editorial’s third categorical assertion is wrong. For example, Germany has for several decades been the biggest and most dynamic economy in Europe; similarly, Japan, India, Brazil, South Korea are economic and technological powerhouses, yet the other great powers have resisted their inclusion. If anything, the US prefers them to be included only as second-class members of the Council without the veto power. Again, China’s permanent membership for example predated its contemporary superpower status, so it goes beyond merely “doing your home-work first.”

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I would concur though that back in 1992 when Nigeria first signified its intention to seek a permanent seat in the SC, it was an overweening ambition because there was no reform agenda at the time. But things have since changed, as noted above, with the recommendations of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. The Panel’s 99-page report made wide-ranging recommendations for reforms that would align the UN more effectively with the realities of the 21st Century world. The recommendations that are germane for my intervention here concern the expansion of membership of the SC from its present 15 members to 24 to accommodate regions of the world like Africa and Latin America that were hitherto unrepresented in that highest portals of global governance and decision-making. It recommended: no veto power for all new permanent members without exception; two permanent seats also without veto to Africa, as well as the inclusion of Japan and Germany on the strength of their individual developments and contributions to the budget of the UN. It is therefore clear from this point that Nigeria’s aspiration for a permanent seat in the Council is not merely vanity but one needed to represent Africa. I need not waste time on its qualifications since the editorial in question acknowledged them.

Not all the current five permanent members actually earned it. France, for example, was still under Nazi military occupation while the “Big Three” – US, USSR and Britain – were meeting at Yalta and Potsdam towards end of the Second World War to fine-tune the shape of the post-war world order, and was merely gifted a seat to increase Western preponderance over USSR and China. Today, neither France nor Britain can honestly justify their continued membership, for both are economically and militarily smaller than India, and contribute far less than Germany and Japan which have remained locked out of the Council. I agree totally with Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani, the perceptive Singaporean intellectual and diplomat, who submits that it’s time Britain yielded its seat in the Council to India! And so should France.

Let’s be fair to Nigeria; enough of the casual self-flagellation and belittling of our country in the eyes of the world, which is the pastime of the intelligentsia. Nobody is denying that Nigeria has serious problems, but which nation doesn’t! Even America, the famed greatest power, is battling nation-wrecking debt overhang in excess of $35 trillion, divisive social and political problems, democratic backsliding, drug problems, industrial scale gun murders, and sundry criminalities, yet these have not eviscerated its status as a global power.

Many across the globe look up to Nigeria, as Nelson Mandela had said, to get things right for the sake of Africa and the Black race, while we ourselves are busy pulling it down and destroying its reputation. Funny enough, the same elites would be in the forefront of condemnation and protests should Nigeria by inadvertence allow other African countries of lesser stature and standing, like South Africa for example, our perpetual competitor for continental pre-eminence, or Egypt, a country that neither share nor represent authentic African interests, or even Senegal or Morocco, to clinch the seat. Let’s make hay while the sun shines.

•Prof Fawole sent this rejoinder to The Nation’s editorial of October 7.