President Bola Tinubu has reiterated the call for a proper representation of Nigeria on the United Nations Security Council.

Mr Tinubu made the call in his address at the general debate of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Mr Tinubu was represented by Vice-President Kashim Shettima.

“We are here to strengthen the prospects for peace, development, and human rights. Madam President, I want to make four points today to outline how we can do this: Nigeria must have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council,” he stated. “This should take place as part of a wider process of institutional reform.”

He noted that the United Nations would recover its relevance only when it reflects the world as it is, not as it was.

“Nigeria’s journey tells this story with clarity: when the UN was founded, we were a colony of 20 million people, absent from the tables where decisions about our fate were taken. Today, we are a sovereign nation of over 236 million, projected to be the third most populous country in the world, with one of the youngest and most dynamic populations on earth.

“A stabilising force in regional security and a consistent partner in global peacekeeping. Our case for a permanent seat at the Security Council is a demand for fairness, for representation, and for reform that restores credibility to the very institution upon which the hope of multilateralism rests,” he explained.

Mr Tinubu stated that Nigeria stands firmly behind the UN80 Initiative of the secretary-general and the resolution adopted by the assembly on July 18.

“A bold step to reform the wider United Nations system for greater relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness in the face of unprecedented financial strain. We support the drive to rationalise structures and end the duplication of responsibilities and programmes, so that this institution may speak with one voice and act with greater coherence.

“None of us can achieve a peaceful world in isolation. This is the heavy burden of sovereignty. Sovereignty is a covenant of shared responsibility, a recognition that our survival is bound to the survival of others. To live up to this charge, we must walk hand in hand with our neighbours and partners. We must follow the trails of weapons, of money, and of people. For these forces, too often driven by faceless non-state actors, ignite the fires of conflict across our region,” the president said.

Mr Tinubu said Nigeria’s soldiers and civilians carry a proud legacy, adding that they have participated in 51 out of 60 United Nations peacekeeping operations since the country’s independence in 1960.

He stated that Nigeria has stood alongside its partners in Africa to resolve conflicts and has continued that commitment through the Multinational Joint Task Force. He added that the country was still confronting the scourge of insurgency with firm resolve.

“From this long and difficult struggle with violent extremism, one truth stands clear: military tactics may win battles measured in months and years, but in wars that span generations, it is values and ideas that deliver the ultimate victory.

“We are despised by terrorists because we choose tolerance over tyranny. Their ambition is to divide us and to poison our humanity with a toxic rhetoric of hate. Our difference is the distance between shadow and light, between despair and hope, between the ruin of anarchy and the promise of order. We do not only fight wars, we feed and shelter the innocent victims of war.

“This is why we are not indifferent to the devastations of our neighbours, near and distant. This is why we speak of the violence and aggression visited upon innocent civilians in Gaza, the illegal attack on Qatar, and the tensions that scar the wider region. It is not only because of the culture of impunity that makes such acts intolerable, but because our own bitter experience has taught us that such violence never ends where it begins,” Mr Tinubu said.

(NAN)