by Sam Nda-Isaiah

The recent selection of Nigeria to chair the Security Council of the United Nations for the current session, and our overwhelming endorsement by fellow countries of the African continent, is a clear indication that the contest for the permanent seat reserved for the African continent is ours to lose. And, we are clearly and surely going to lose it because we have a president who does not know the value of what is at issue. Unless Umaru’s attitude to the matter changes, of course.

There is a story Ambassador Shehu Malami, Sarkin Sudan and Nigeria’s first High Commissioner to South Africa, told me recently. It was something that happened when he was still the high commissioner, and General Sani Abacha was head of state. Ambassador Malami and some diplomats were in Mafeking, a city two hours away from Johannesburg for a meeting and Nelson Mandela, then president of a newly liberated South Africa was in attendance. After the meeting, Mandela told Malami to see him in Cape Town the following day. Now, apart from being high commissioner, Malami was also friend to Mandela. So, ordinarily, an invitation would not be out of place. But whatever it was that Mandela could not discuss with him right away and preferred him to travel several hours – from Mafeking to Cape Town – to do so would be worth every minute of it. So he left whatever he was doing and boarded the next flight headed in the direction of Cape Town.

In Cape Town, Mandela simply told Nigeria’s high commissioner that he (Malami) and Nigeria should be assured that South Africa was not going to compete with Nigeria for the United Nations permanent seat. He said the whole of Africa saw Nigeria as the leader and wanted her to take her rightful place. He told Malami to convey this message to “my leader”. Malami said he referred to both Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took over from him, as his leader. Malami passed on the message dutifully.

I am not sure South Africa still feels the same way towards Nigeria. In fact, even very small African countries that used to “troop” to Nigeria to pay obeisance now have better things to do with their spare time. Some of them now have reasons to believe that they are now superior to us in some material indices of nationhood. Between the time Mandela gave Ambassador Malami the message and today, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. So many elections have been rigged and our leaders have stolen all our money with Obasanjo topping the chart. Nigeria can still not provide its citizens with drinking water, the electric power situation has actually become a scandal. Nigerians these days troop to Ghana, Egypt and South Africa to get both quality education and meaningful health care. And Nigeria still imports fuel even though it is Africa’s largest producer of crude oil. In a nutshell, Nigeria is not serious.

Many African countries now see Nigeria as a big-for-nothing elder brother and responsible siblings do not cede headship of the house to irresponsible elder brothers. Apart from all these, we had a supposedly elected president who shared bribes to parliamentarians to change the constitution to enable him continue in power for life.

Is this the kind of leader the African continent or indeed any other continent would choose to lead it? And to compound our problems, we now have a president who doesn’t engage the world at all. For a country that seeks the permanent seat on the security council, is it not funny that its president has not attended the United Nations General Assembly meeting in the last two consecutive years? While other nations were juggling for influence during the last general assembly meeting in New York, our president invited himself to the opening of a university in Saudi Arabia. As it is now, Egypt would get the endorsement of the United States, so we will need to start cultivating support from other power centres. And to stand a fighting chance of clinching what should naturally come to us, we will have to start behaving ourselves properly and Umaru has to convince the world that he even understands the worth of that position.

To be sure, Nigeria should get it. We have contributed more to the security of sub-sahara Africa than any other country. We have (at least in the past) bailed out several African countries. We have restored democracy to several African countries even though we have continued to rig our own elections. Nigeria still has the highest troop contingent in Darfur. Nigeria was instrumental in bringing stability to Liberia and Sierra Leone. We were in the forefront during the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa and during the struggle for the independence of Angola and Zimbabwe. Nigeria remains the intellectual hub of Africa and we have no extra-territorial ambitions. But simply because you deserve something does not mean you will get it. The world cannot predict a country that is not a democracy and even though our government deceives itself, the enlightened world still does not call us a democratic country. We do not have the overwhelming population and power like China to overcome this democratic credentials, and Nigeria needs to start inspiring confidence in other nations.

Our own Professor Ibrahim Gambari, currently a technocrat with the United Nations recently declared that we are not doing enough to win the permanent seat on the security council. More than any Nigerian alive, Professor Gambari should know.

EAR SHOT

What Is Qatar Airways Still Doing Here?

For whatever reasons, it appears that Qatar has decided not to issue tourist visas to Nigerian citizens anymore. Recently, all the Nigerians who were billed to attend a conference in their country were blackballed and refused entry visas, and this has been going on for quite sometime. Qatar Airways, however, is daily making a killing in Nigeria flying Nigerians from Lagos on every single day. Nigerian passengers are usually those who would connect to Dubai, India, Saudi Arabia and China. So even though the Qataris are interested in the money Nigerians spend patronizing their 5-star airline, they do not want to see our faces. Isn’t it time someone in the Nigerian government stopped this insolence? Maybe Qatar Airways should also be blackballed!