Opinion

Why Nigeria Deserves UN Security Council Permanent Seat

Published

1 year ago

October 6, 2024

Nigeria has significantly contributed troops and police officers to the United Nations peacekeeping operations worldwide since 1960. That year, the Nigeria Police deployed the first-ever contingent of individual police officers to the UN Mission in the Congo. Assistant Commissioner of Police Louis Edet led the team at the time. In these operations, Nigeria resolutely committed herself to the onerous task of maintaining world peace and security. Some of the country’s gallant officers paid the supreme price, while many were injured and maimed for life. During the military era, particularly during the reign of General Ibrahim Babangida, under the auspices of the African Union and ECOWAS, there was the ECOWAS Monitoring Group, which intervened decisively in Liberia, paving the way for the restoration of civil rule in that country. Rebel leaders had turned Liberia into a theatre of war in their desperate battle for power. Nigeria’s troops were also the military backbone of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) from 2003-2018, restoring security throughout that country.

Since then, Nigeria has been involved in peacekeeping operations in many African countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Mali, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi. The government has contributed a lot in finance, logistics and civilian experts to these missions. Beyond Africa, the country’s police force participated in operations in Western Sahara, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, East Timor, Haiti, Kosovo and Afghanistan, to mention but a few.

It is relevant to point out that Nigeria’s engagement is not only in peacekeeping or maintaining law and order across these nations; the country has helped stabilise and strengthen democracy in Africa. For instance, it’s on record that Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo played a leading role in the international effort to restore democratic order in São Tomé and Principle when President Fradique de Menezes was toppled by the military in that country in July 2003 while visiting Nigeria. Obasanjo and other foreign leaders reined in the military junta that ousted Menezes. The former Nigerian president took Menezes in his plane, leading him back to power in the oil-rich island republic.

In addition, Nigeria’s effort helped ferry former military leader Yahya Jammeh from The Gambia when he became a stumbling block to constitutional order.

After losing the election his regime organised, Jammeh refused to concede defeat to Adama Baro, who won the poll. The private plane of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, now President Bola Tinubu, was deployed to evacuate the once-dreaded Jammeh out of The Gambia.

I can continue enumerating Nigeria’s efforts to help maintain peace and security worldwide.

It is against this backdrop of the country’s considerable efforts in maintaining peace and deepening democracy in Africa and beyond that the recent demand for a permanent seat for Africa in the UN Security Council be considered. No country in Africa has contributed to global peace and security than Nigeria in terms of human and material resources. The request for a well-deserved permanent seat for the continent was the high point of Nigeria’s presentation at the just-ended 79th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA79) in the United States.

Vice President Kashim Shettima led Nigeria’s delegation to that session and presented the country’s national statement on behalf of President Tinubu. The president stayed back at home to attend to pressing domestic issues. That decision, the first by any Nigerian president since 1999, deserves commendation.

To say that Vice President Shettima ably represented the country is to state the obvious, particularly for those who watched the presentation live or on television. Resplendent in the country’s traditional white flowing babariga with a matching Borno cap, VP Shettima did an excellent job.

Making a case for this all-important seat on the UN’s exalted podium, the vice president said: “Reform of the Security Council is critical if the UN is to strengthen its relevance and credibility in our rapidly changing world. Some permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have offered encouraging, if tentative, indications of support on the issue of reform of the Council. We welcome the change in tone and urge acceleration in momentum to the process.

“The Security Council should be expanded, in the permanent and non-permanent member categories, to reflect the diversity and plurality of the world. We fully support the efforts of Secretary-General Guterres in this regard. Africa must be accorded the respect that it deserves in the Security Council. Our continent deserves a place in the permanent members category of the Security Council, with the same rights and responsibilities as other Permanent Members.”

With a population of over 1.3 billion people and home to the most critical mineral resources that will power the global economy, a permanent seat for Africa in the UN Security Council will ensure inclusivity and a spirit of brotherhood. Given its strategic importance, Africa should join the council’s five permanent members. And more than any other country on the African continent, Nigeria truly merits this seat. It is an entitlement and a matter of right.

First, the seat will serve as due compensation for Nigeria’s labour of service to the world. The country’s active participation in peacekeeping missions helped save countless lives and restore peace and stability to many countries. The UN has acknowledged this important work. In a publication of the world body in February 2019, the UN singled out Nigeria for praise for her service and sacrifice. However, the UN should do more than commendation. The world body should offer Nigeria this much-desired permanent seat to appreciate the country’s contribution.

Second, as indicated earlier, Nigeria contributed the most troops and police to UN missions among African nations. The Nigeria Police Force committed more men and materials to keep the peace in Africa and elsewhere. According to the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, Nigeria contributed to 41 peacekeeping missions globally and deployed over 200,000 troops to UN operations since her first deployment in the Congo. He spoke in New York at the summit of the Future Interactive Dialogue on the theme: “Enhancing Multilateralism for International Peace and Security.”

The attendant cost to Nigeria’s engagement in these peacekeeping operations is enormous. For instance, official sources revealed that ECOMOG, a regional mediation force put together to end the protracted Liberian civil war, was operated at an estimated cost of $8 billion to the Nigerian government.

Third, and more importantly, with its large population of young, energetic, and creative people and enormous resources, Nigeria can provide the required leadership for Africa at the UN Security Council.

This is a role the country has been performing for many decades. It has the potential to perform this work even better. Nigeria will be the real giant of Africa if it rises to this eminent status.

Former South African President, the highly revered Dr Nelson Mandela, was once reported to have said that the Black Race would not achieve its status until Nigeria sorted out itself.

When President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s reform agenda fully manifests, Nigeria will sort itself out sooner, not later. Then, the country will take its rightful place as the true leader of Africa in the community of nations.

• Rahman is a Senior Presidential Aide

History

They Were Almost Home

Published

1 month ago

December 15, 2025

By Oyekunle Olalekan

That fragile moment when the body relaxes before the journey ends. When the mind moves ahead of the plane, stepping already into tomorrow. Below them, the land unfolded – wet, familiar, waiting. Port Harcourt breathed under the rain, unaware of how many stories were descending toward it.

They were aboard Sosoliso Airline Flight 1145, traveling from Abuja, descending toward Port Harcourt.
A routine journey. A trusted path.

Among them were students. Young voices carrying laughter from Abuja back to the places that shaped them. Schoolbags tucked beneath seats, futures folded carefully inside. The cabin filled with normal sounds. Seatbelts fastened. A familiar announcement.

But they were not alone.

There were parents too, travelling with quiet endurance. Strangers bound together briefly by chance and shared air. Lives intersecting for only a few hours, never knowing how closely their fates had aligned. Each seat held a history. Each name carried someone else’s heart.

The cabin was filled with normalcy. Seatbelts clicked. The familiar announcement was made. Almost there. No one prepares for loss while preparing to land.

Rain followed them in silence. It fell steadily, blurring sky and earth, erasing certainty. The city below dimmed, and in that narrowing space between cloud and ground, time faltered. What happened next came without permission, without mercy.

And then… impact.
And then… absence.

What remained was not only twisted metal, but waiting. Phones that rang into nothing. Families pacing airport floors long after arrival time had passed. Names repeated until they lost their shape.

They were students.
They were parents.
They were individuals whose lives did not deserve to end as headlines.

Twenty years have passed. Twenty years of birthdays uncelebrated. Of classrooms that never felt quite full again. Of parents who learned how to live with a silence that does not heal. Time moved forward, as it always does, but grief did not dissolve; it only changed shape.

A nation mourned not just what was lost, but what was unfinished, the futures that never unfolded, the questions that lingered about responsibility, about safety, about whether this loss could have been prevented.

Grief does not discriminate. It visits the young and the old alike. It settles into uniforms never worn again, into meals cooked for those who will never return.

They were almost home. That is what makes the loss unbearable. Not the distance, but the nearness. Not the journey, but the promise of arrival.

This is more than the story of a crash that happened twenty years ago. It is a reminder that every passenger matters, that safety is a responsibility, not a suggestion, that memory must outlive negligence.

They were almost home.

And now, two decades later, they live in remembrance.

RIP to the 107 lives lost that day.
Gone from sight, but never from memory.

Opinion

Kogi: The Road That Connects Every Region Now Endangers Every Home

Published

1 month ago

December 8, 2025

By Oyekunle Olalekan

There was a time when the long stretch of highway running through the middle of Nigeria symbolised unity. It was the route that carried families to reunions, traders to markets, students to school, and workers to opportunity. That road was the lifeline that stitched our regions together, a shared path, a shared hope.

But today, that same road has become the nation’s most painful wound.

Across the central corridor, travellers now journey with trembling hearts. Buses move in fear, not confidence.

Every stop along the highway comes with silent prayers. The road that once connected homes now threatens to break them.

In recent months, the nation has woken up repeatedly to chilling news: travellers ambushed in the middle of the highway, entire buses hijacked, ransom calls echoing through the phones of helpless families.

Stories of kidnapped students, traders, children, and clergy have shaken communities to their core. Some victims were rescued after courageous operations; others are still missing, their families clinging to hope in the dark.

The human cost is immeasurable. Mothers stay awake through the night waiting for travel updates. Fathers count the hours, fearing the worst. Students postpone journeys out of dread.

Traders lose income because the safest option is to stay home. Even the most essential movement, the simple act of travelling across one’s own country has become a gamble with fate.

This is more than a regional crisis. When danger grips the central road that binds the country together, the entire nation bleeds. If that artery fails, movement fails. If movement fails, unity fails.

Opinion

Trump’s Outburst and the Vindication of President Tinubu

Published

2 months ago

November 3, 2025

Samson Adeyanju

By Foluso Ojo Sylvanus

When Donald Trump sneezes, the political world catches a cold. Love him or loathe him, one thing you can’t deny is his brutal honesty or, to put it more bluntly, his lack of diplomatic restraint. And that, precisely, is what makes his recent action toward Nigeria all the more revealing.

For years, detractors have tried to stain the image of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with every imaginable accusation from certificate forgery to phantom drug links in the United States. The propaganda was relentless, and many began to wonder if there might be a grain of truth somewhere in the noise. But Trump’s recent behavior has made something crystal clear to me: those allegations are nothing but lies from the pit of hell.

Let’s think about it. As a president of the United States, Trump has access to some of the most classified information in the world. If there were any credible evidence tying Tinubu to those allegations, Trump would know. And knowing his fiery, unfiltered style, he would have wasted no time spilling it to the world especially now that he seems desperate for opportunities to discredit Nigeria and ridicule Tinubu’s government.

But he hasn’t. Not a word. Not a whisper.

That silence speaks louder than a thousand tweets. It tells me that there’s simply nothing there no hidden file, no scandal, no secret waiting to explode. Because if there were, Trump would have been the first to weaponize it.

This is the same Trump who has insulted world leaders without blinking, who has mocked allies and enemies alike, who once called entire nations “shitholes.” Are we to believe that such a man would quietly hold on to damning information about Nigeria’s president out of respect or restraint? Certainly not.

His silence, therefore, becomes an unintended testimony a silent vindication of Tinubu’s integrity.

What this moment reveals is deeper than politics. It exposes how easily falsehood can masquerade as fact in our social media-driven age. For too long, we’ve allowed political opponents to define the narratives that shape our national image abroad. But now, even the world’s most outspoken leader has unintentionally confirmed what many of us have always believed: Tinubu’s story is not one of scandal but of survival, strategy, and statesmanship.

In a strange twist of irony, Donald Trump a man not exactly known for diplomacy may have just done more to clear President Tinubu’s name than all the press conferences in Abuja combined.