Nigeria has delivered a thunderous warning to the United Nations — Africa’s continued exclusion from permanent membership of the Security Council is destroying the credibility and legitimacy of the global order.
“A continent cannot be summoned to bear the burdens of the international order and then denied an equal hand in directing it,” Vice President Kashim Shettima declared in New York.
Shettima, who addressed the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, demanded at least two permanent Security Council seats for Africa.
He warned that the world can no longer remain captive to a 1945 arrangement that shares permanent veto power among only five nations — the U.S., China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom — while 1.4 billion Africans are locked out.
Closed-Door Meeting With Amina Mohammed
The Vice President amplified Nigeria’s push during a high-level meeting with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed on the sidelines of UNGA.
Reaffirming Nigeria’s call for urgent reform of the UN and other global institutions, Shettima said the structure of global decision-making must reflect today’s geopolitical and demographic realities.
He commended UN Secretary-General António Guterres for his consistent advocacy that a 21st-century Council without permanent African representation is “unjust and indefensible.”
ALSO READ: 2026 can’t be held hostage by 1945, says Nigeria to UN, demands two permanent UN seats for Africa
Shettima also praised Guterres for defending international law at a time of widening conflicts.
“You have remained a voice of reason as individual states drift from the obligations they assumed under the United Nations Charter,” he said.
Humanity Must Come First
In a deeply emotional charge, Shettima warned that diplomacy must not become detached from human suffering.
“The mother searching for her child, the family driven from home and the hungry child awaiting food must never become abstractions in the language of states,” he said.
He stressed that civilization endures only when the suffering of a stranger becomes a claim on conscience, adding that Nigeria will remain a willing partner in restoring trust, protecting dignity, and confronting hunger, violence and exclusion.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed thanked President Tinubu and Shettima for their support, saying: “It’s a deep honour to have your esteemed delegation here. He has been an incredible support to me, and he has also supported this institution.”
Shettima was accompanied by Governors AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Hyacinth Alia, Siminalayi Fubara and Dauda Lawal, as well as Foreign Minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu and Nigeria’s UN Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim.
