Nigeria at 74th UNGA: Matters arising

Information garnered from the website of the United Nations says “All 193 Member States of the Organisation are represented in the General Assembly – one of the six main organs of the UN – to discuss and work together on a wide array of international issues covered by the Charter of the United Nations, such as development, peace and security, international law, etc. Every year in September, all the Members meet in this unique forum at Headquarters in New York for the General Assembly session.”

The theme for the 74th session of the UN General Assembly is “Galvanising multilateral efforts for poverty eradication, quality education, climate action and inclusion”. This year’s theme was identified by the new President of the UNGA who incidentally is a Nigerian, Professor Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, who on June 4, 2019, was elected to succeed María Fernanda Espinosa, whose term ended this month. The election of Bande to pilot the activities of the UNGA for the next one year is significant to the extent that Nigeria was only privileged to occupy such a pre-eminent position 30 years ago when Major General Joe Garba was elected the president of the body in 1989.

Nigeria also has another of her citizens holding another exalted office in the UN: A former Minister of Environment, now Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Amina Mohammed, who assumed position on February 28, 2017.

President Muhammadu Buhari is at the UNGA and was the fifth President to address the assembly on Tuesday, September 24, 2019. According to a press statement by Nigeria’s Minster of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, attending the UNGA is a great opportunity to not only project the country, but also to articulate to the world priorities of the Nigerian government. In addition, the General Assembly offers the country an opportunity for engagement in many fora. Several side events were also organised by Nigeria. These include: SDGs Integration; Bridging the Policy Planning Budget Gap for the achievement of the SDGs; Promotion of International Cooperation to combat illicit financial flows and strengthen good practices on asset recovery and return to foster sustainable development in the country and Sanitation and Hygiene Campaign for a Clean Nigeria: Sharing lessons and key insights.

It would seem that Prof Bande had his native land, Nigeria, in mind in setting the theme for this year’s General Assembly. “Galvanising multilateral efforts for poverty eradication, quality education, climate action and inclusion” mirrors the challenges the country is facing at present. There is no gainsaying that the country is under the siege of poverty. An estimated 87 million Nigerians are facing extreme poverty. A June 2018 report by The World Poverty Clock shows that Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world. Even with half a trillion naira Social Investment Programme of the Buhari administration, little achievements have been recorded in tackling this menace.

Incidentally, there is a nexus between poverty and a spike in the crime rate. A lot of Nigerians are no longer long-suffering as was in the past. With limited gainful employment, a sizeable number of idle  youths are now taking refuge in drug addiction and concomitantly crimes such as banditry,  kidnapping for ransom and all manner of corrupt practices including Internet scam popularly called ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’.  Having this serious issue discussed at the global level such as the UN is meant to find a multilateral panacea to the monstrous menace.

Talking of quality education, this is in steep decline in Nigeria. In fact, there is a raging debate about employability of many of the graduates of tertiary institutions. Some critics have said that the country is churning out half-baked graduates and that there is a need to revise the country’s educational curriculum. Other educationists have said that a state of emergency should be declared in our education sector. This clarion call has been heeded by many state governments but the fruits of that effort have yet to be seen. There is still a lot of restiveness in the country’s education sector as academic and non-academic staff of various academic institutions perennially go on strikes. The very dire situation in many public schools has pushed a lot of parents to enrolling their wards and children in private schools in the country or send them abroad for schooling. Incidentally, Governor Nasir el-Rufai demonstrated faith in the Kaduna State public schools when he enrolled his six-year-old son in a public primary school last Monday.

On climate action, President Buhari struck the right chord last Monday, when he addressed a panel at the UNGA. He used the opportunity to unfold robust plans and initiatives by his administration to reverse the negative effects of climate change in Nigeria. The plans were revealed in his address to the UN Climate Action Summit with the theme, “A Race We Can Win. A Race We Must Win.” While sharing the concerns expressed by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, that the world is on the verge of climate catastrophe, President Buhari stated that “undeniably, climate change is a human-induced phenomenon.” He, therefore, stressed the need for member states to step up their collective climate actions in line with the request of the Secretary General.

The President reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to its obligations under the Paris Agreement. He said his government would mobilise Nigerian youths towards planting 25 million trees to enhance Nigeria’s carbon sink. He, however, did not say the timeline within which this would be done and how it would be achieved. He also disclosed that Nigeria had embarked on diversification of its energy sources from dependence on gas-powered system to hydro, solar, wind, biomass and nuclear sources. Well said! However, the President was silent on the knotty issue of continuous gas flaring by international oil companies in Nigeria and its enormous contribution of ozone layer depletion. The President did mention in his address that the Federal Government had commenced the implementation of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Programme in Ogoniland. This, he said, is aimed at recovering the carbon sink potential of the mangrove ecosystem of the one thousand square kilometres polluted site in the affected area.

It is heartwarming that the theme of this year’s UNGA touched on inclusion. This is highly desirable. Right now, in Nigeria, inclusive governance is still a mirage. Nigerian youths, women and Persons with Disabilities are still facing stiff discrimination in politics, elections and governance. Though the Not-Too-Young-To Run Act which ensured age reduction for aspirants to the seat of president, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly have opened space for youths to contest elections, however the high expression of interest and nomination fees being demanded by some political parties is still an inhibiting factor. Women’s fortunes in elective and appointive positions in 2019 has greatly retrogressed while in spite of the signing of the National Disability Bill into law since January 23, 2019, nothing significant has been done towards the implementation of the Act. And talking of inclusion, I wished  President Buhari raised the issue of sustained xenophobic attacks on African migrants, especially Nigerians, in South Africa. This is one key issue that needs multilateral action championed by the UN.