Nigeria’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, UN, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, has noted that the country’s quest for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council may remain a pipe dream as long as the country was yet to overcome basic economic and security challenges.
The renowned diplomat, who made this known at this year’s Leadership Award and Conference in Abuja, noted with dismay that Nigeria had not been able to overcome its basic challenges more than 100 years after its amalgamation.
Gambari, who founded the Nigerian-based Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, SCDDD, said that it would be difficult for Nigeria to take a permanent seat at the world’s body with the barrage of challenges still staring it in the face.
“We cannot lay claim to a permanent seat at an enlarged United Nations security council when the Nigerian Armed forces have not been able to demonstrate exemplary capability in the Defence of our territorial integrity,” he stated.
The elder statesman regretted that the nation was still grappling with nation-building when it should be consolidating on its growth and development as a leading black nation on earth.
He said it was paradoxical for Nigeria which is the world’s eighth largest exporter of crude oil, endowed with many precious resources, still having more than 70 per cent of its population living below the poverty line and remaining relatively a poor country in the world.
Gambari pointed out that the myriads of challenges hanging on Nigeria’s shoulders needed to be urgently addressed by the leadership if progress was to be made and take the country into a new era of progress and prosperity.
To be able to achieve success, he suggested that the negative forces working against the country must be deliberately and urgently tackled to pave the way for peace, security and development.
“In reclaiming Nigeria, the use of overwhelming force to degrade the military capacity of the terrorist group, the mobilization of neighbouring countries and the West African sub-region to collectively fight the scourge and to drain the swamp which is to embark not only on massive relief of the victims but on socio-economic recovery and reconstruction of the areas of the country that have been devastated by the activities of the terrorist group,” he stated.
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