The Role of Africa in the United Nations

“Instrumentalizing” The United Nations: Nigeria and Its Quest for Regional Leadership in Africa

“…Nigeria's efforts in this regard began a few days after the attainment of independent statehood when Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa stated the country's readiness to participate actively in the operations of the UN during a maiden address to the General Assembly and was afterward requested to deploy troops to the UN Mission in the Belgian Congo (ONUC) in 1960. Under the platform of the UN, Nigeria has contributed actively and meaningfully to peace processes all over the world (Agwu 2011; Albert 2007; Gambari 2012; Musa 2010; Oluyemi‐Kusa 2007; Oshewolo 2018a). Considering its enhanced status as a peacekeeping nation, the country seems to have a ground to emphasize its relevance in the international system (Saliu 1997, 2012; Saliu and Oshewolo 2018).…”

“…In addition, Nigeria has leveraged on the multilateral platform of the UN to host the Lagos Plan of Action in 1980 “which provided the blueprint for Africa's economic development up to the year 2000”; drew international attention to “the debt overhang confronting developing countries and the constraints to development posed by it”; and lent support to other “social and humanitarian issues” affecting Africa and the global South such as “human rights, refugee issues and displaced persons, the rights of the child and women, and also on matters relating to narcotics and psychotropic substances” (Gambari 2012, 52).…”

“…As a result of Nigeria's aggressive anti‐apartheid drive, an illustrious Nigerian, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, served as the last chairman of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid for several years until the Committee's successful completion of its mandate in May 1994. This Committee was empowered to lead international campaign against apartheid (Gambari 2012). In recognition of Nigeria's aggressive stance against apartheid, the country emerged as the host of the first UN World Conference against apartheid in 1977.…”

“…Nigeria's membership of the world body was from “a reasoned calculation of its national interests and the fact that the UN which has a near universality of membership and a comprehensive mandate provides a sophisticated and well‐crafted platform for the conduct of its multilateral diplomacy” (Okereke 2005, 306). Similarly, as Gambari (2012) would want us to believe, Nigeria construes its membership of the UN as a tool for promoting its bilateral, multilateral, and global relations and for projecting itself as a leading power from the African continent. He explains further that Nigeria's major foreign policy ideals align fundamentally with the foundational doctrines and principles etched in the Charter of the UN.…”

“…When in the 1970s and 1980s the world did not fully understand the position of Africa on apartheid and colonialism, it was Nigeria that spoke about the authentic feelings of the continent. Nigeria hosted the UN inaugural World Conference for Action against Apartheid in Lagos on August 22–26, 1977, to communicate to the world its rejection of apartheid (Gambari 2012, 53). With reference to South Africa, Nigeria built a strong anti‐apartheid movement with the South African Relief Fund established in 1976 “to provide South Africans with scholarships to Nigerian institutions of learning” (Adebajo 2017, 17).…”