Paul Ohia
30 October 2009
Lagos — Sierra Leonean High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Henry Olufumi Macauley, has debunked media reports that his country does not support Nigeria's quest to become a permanent member of the United Nations' Security Council.
On the contrary, he said, Sierra Leone is behind Nigeria's pursuit, affirming that Sierra Leone had discussed and agreed on the issue even before the bid of Nigeria was made public.
"As such, Sierra Leone was very active in the ECOWAS decision that agreed to support Nigeria, which was again ratified by the African Union of which Sierra Leone is a member of the Candidature Committee and actually acted as rapporteur at the meeting in which this very important decision was discussed in Libya. Sierra Leone's position had therefore been blessed with regional and continental backing," Macauley said in a statement made available to THISDAY.
He said Sierra Leone more that any other country in West Africa, with the exception of Liberia, had benefited and continued to benefit from Nigeria's generosity, leadership and support, adding that his country therefore owed a lot to Nigeria, without whose sacrifice of both human and material resources it could not have survived a gruesome war.
"Nigeria was there before everybody else came and stayed after everybody left. Thereafter, Nigeria has continued to be a strong supporter of our developmental strides as is evidenced in various bilateral cooperation programmes in operation such as the Technical Aide Corps (TAC) amongst various others," he said
According to the ambassador, it is inconceivable that Sierra Leone will mount any show of ingratitude to Nigeria.
He revealed that the Sierra Leonean ambassador to the UN had been in constant communication with the Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone on the instructions of the country's President Ernest Bai Koroma throughout this process of choosing a new member.
He said the president spoke to her before he went in to vote and called her after the elections to give her the result of all candidates she had urged him to vote for.
"It was therefore unconceivable under any circumstances for Sierra Leone to have voted otherwise. It was an issue that was closely and personally followed up in Freetown both by the Foreign Minister and the President," he said.
According to the envoy, Sierra Leone and Nigeria share a strong bond of intermarriages, kinship and friendship at various levels of interaction, a fact that Sierra Leone's Minister of Foreign Affairs has been presenting in all sub-regional, regional and international forums since visiting us in Sierra Leone.
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