Lagos — In a characteristic manner, Africa is unable to produce a compromise candidate(s) for the proposed expanded permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, five months to the deadline. If this opportunity is frittered away, Black Africans will remain the only race without representation in the most powerful organ of the United Nations, with the attendant negative implications.
Since the world body was established six decades ago, it has served as a widely accepted platform for international relations, diplomacy and arbitration. Specifically, the security council that takes final decisions on war and related matters has become a forum where awesome military credentials are used as weapons for negotiations and supremacy. Also, the veto power held by its five permanent members - US, China, France, Britain and Russia - confers on them rare privileges whose misuse can have serious global consequences. Over the years, this status quo has provided the basis for apprehension, inferiority and agitation among the non-veto members of the organisation.
The current reforms at the UN are aimed at correcting that imbalance to foster a better sense of belonging in the world community. The cold war era promoted the polarisation of nations along ideological lines, which in turn hampered global peace, trust, and integration. In the new world, there is the need for a repositioned UN to move closer to racial equality.
That is why the most backward part of the planet - Africa - must not be sidelined as a new thinking sweeps through the UN. From centuries of slavery, through direct colonialism, and now to economic imperialism, Africa has remained the butt of all other races of the world.
It is sad that now that an occasion has presented itself to move the continent up in the global family, Africa is once again in contention with itself for the one or two security council slots. It is unfortunate that the seven aspiring countries - Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Senegal, Libya and Gambia - do not seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Majority of the veto holders prefer the existing structure and composition of the influential organ. The failure of African nations to forge a common front would only justify the alibi for their position that the elite club of veto-wielders should not be expanded.
This point has been well made by Nigeria's minister of foreign affairs, Chief Olu Adeniji. Says he: "The quest (for a candidate) has hit a brickwall. The battle is now between aspirants to that seat and members not willing to admit new entrants...And for the five permanent members, the disagreement among the contenders is sweet music."
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If this discordant tune is received as symphony by advanced nations, it will, no doubt, have a cacophonous fall-out in Africa whose underdog rating has continued to deny it the best on offer in a world that is often unkind to the feeble. The African Union (AU) should urgently put its acts together and prove that it is united, focused and undaunted in the pursuit of its interests.
At the risk of appearing immodest, we reiterate our stand on Africa's selection for the UN slot. Nigeria is eminently qualified to clinch it, against the background of its unstinted involvement in peace-keeping operations around the globe. It has committed more human, financial and material resources to peace efforts in the continent and outside it than any other African country. Furthermore, apart from its predominant population, it also possesses the potential to be the strongest economy in the continent.
Whichever way it turns out, Africa must show that it has come of age, and that it is prepared to be realistic in its choice of which of its countries assumes the critical responsibilities at the world's centre stage.
