Newly-elected Nigerian UNGA President to expedite Security Council reform

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 07 (APP): Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United Nations Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, who has been elected as the next President of the General Assembly, says he will try to advance the stalled process to reform the UN Security Council in order to ensure that the 15-member body is more democratic and efficient.

“We will try to hasten those negotiations in the spirit of fairness” and also with the sense that 75 years after its founding the UN could not continue to “speak the language” it did 50 or 70 years ago, he told reporters after his election by acclamation to preside over the 74th U.N. session for one year, starting in September.

He is the second Nigerian president of the 193-member General Assembly. Joseph Nanven Garba was president during the 1989-1990 session.

Ambassador Muhammad-Bande succeeds Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador.

The long-running reform of the Security Council has made little progress after the Inter-Governmental Negotiatins (IGN) a decade ago. The negotiating process for the UNSC reform is headed for a roll-over to the next UNGA session without making much headway this year.

Full-scale negotiations to reform the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009 on five key areas — the categories of membership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council, and working methods of the council and its relationship with the General Assembly.

Despite a general agreement on enlarging the Council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.

India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, known as the Group of Four, have been campaigning for expansion of the Security Council by 10 seats, with six additional permanent and four non-permanent members.

On the other hand, the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group firmly opposes any additional permanent members, saying that such a move will not make the Security Council more effective and that it will be contrary to the fundamental principle of democracy that is based on periodic elections. UfC wants expansion in the Council’ non-permanent category.

The Security Council is currently composed of five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and 10 non-permanent members.

The current situation is “untenable” and it is import for “the delegations that are further apart to see whether we can continue to narrow the differences”, Muhammad-Bande, a former university professor, said. “We have to continue not to lose sight of the goal which is to have fair, just and quick reform.”

He said while there was support and consensus for Africa to have permanent representation in the Council, the reform process and the Council was not only for one group.

“It is a consensus element involving member states. Progress is being made, we will continue to push this and at some point we will get to the point where the Security Council will be more democratic and more efficient,” he said.

The Nigerian diplomat said that his delegation would study the draft IGN report from the current session and see how to narrow differences so that “within a few years, we can see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Earlier, addressing the 193-member General Assembly after his election, Muhammad-Bande had said that implementation of existing mandates and the 2030 Agenda with particular focus on peace and security, poverty eradication, zero hunger, quality education, climate action and inclusion would constitute the major properties of his presidency.

“I am committed to promoting partnerships that are needed from all stakeholders to achieve our objectives and ultimately ensure that we do our best to ensure peace and prosperity, particularly for the most vulnerable,” he said.

Muhammad-Bande said that nations must continue to invest in sustaining peace and conflict prevention given the organisation’s goal to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

He said that the promotion of human rights and the empowerment of women and youth deserved special attention and he would be devoted to the promotion of gender parity throughout the whole UN system, starting from his own office.

The Nigerian diplomat said, “We must seize each of those opportunities to galvanize political momentum and action at the highest level. I am committed to promoting partnerships that are needed from all stakeholders to achieve our objectives, and ultimately ensure that we do our best to ensure peace and prosperity, particularly, for the most vulnerable.”