Nigeria Elusive Of UN Security Council Until Economic n Security Stability

Gambari, who spoke 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.

The Former Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, has said that Nigeria’s quest for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council may remain elusive as long as the country was yet to overcome basic economic and security challenges. 

The renowned diplomat, who is the founder of the Nigerian-based Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, SCDDD, 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. 

Gambari lamented that it was a paradox that Nigeria the world’s eight largest exporter of crude oil, endowed with many precious resources, still had more than 70 per cent of its population living below the poverty line and remained a relatively poor country in the world. 

The former top public servant said that it would be difficult for Nigeria to take a permanent seat at the world’s body with the barrage of challenges still starring it in the face. 

Gambari said: “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 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, Gambari suggested that the negative forces working against the country must be deliberately and urgently tackled to pave the way for peace, security and development. 

He said: “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.