Photo credit: carbon brief
The United States has announced its intention to back 2 permanent seats for African nations on the United Nations Security Council. Russia too has backed an African country to be a permanent member of the Security Council. However, the African countries will just be toothless bulldogs because they won’t have veto powers.
The “mercifulness” of the powerful states set me thinking about which African countries will serve as permanent members of the Security Council. Even if it’s ba n kun’jo, that is seat fillers, I think we’re making some progress.
I remember the Murtala/Obasanjo military regime between 13 29 July 1975 and October 1, 1979. Murtala was killed in a coup d’etat on 13 February 1976 and Obasanjo became the ruler.
Although their government made some tactical errors, their rule was a watershed in Nigeria’s foreign policy. With the gangling Brigadier(later Major General) Joe Nanven Garba as Minister of Defense and the eminent Professor Bolaji Akinyemi as the director of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Nigeria churned out some of the best ideas in foreign policy.
General Garba was later to serve as president of United Nations General Assembly between 1989 and 1990.
Those were the days that when Nigeria whispers, most nations were bound to listen.
Nigeria played a key role in supporting the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. The frontline states were originally Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. During the liberation struggle, Nigeria nationalized some banks and some oil companies. The government took over
However, Nigeria’s voice is hardly heard now.
Nigeria’s threat to wage war against Niger, being the chairman of ECOWAS – the regional West African body – resulted in Niger, Mali and Ivory Coast doing the unthinkable. They expelled themselves from ECOWAS and formed the Sahelian Security Alliance.
It’s not yet clear which African countries would be picked.
However, in the not-too-distant past, Nigeria would have been given a pride of place.
