President Bola Tinubu has advocated providing a Permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council for Nigeria and the need for the host countries to benefit from mineral resources.
Tinubu who was represented by the Vice President Kashim Shettima at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly sought ‘‘One, Nigeria must have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. This should take place as part of a wider process of institutional reform.
‘‘Two, we need urgent action to promote sovereign debt relief and access to trade and financing. Three, countries that host minerals must benefit from those minerals. And fourth, the digital divide must close. As our Presidential Secretary-General has said, AI must stand for Africa Included.’’
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Tinubu explained that ‘‘ On my first point, the United Nations will recover its relevance only when it reflects the world as it is, not as it was. Nigeria’s journey tells this story with clarity. When the UN was founded, we were a colony of 20 million people, absent from the tables where decisions about our fate were taken.
Full Speech Speech of Tinubu
Distinguished Delegates, the chaos that shadows our world is a reminder that we cannot afford the luxury of inaction. We would have been consumed by our differences had there been no community such as this to remind us that we are one human family. Even in our darkest hours, we have refused to be broken. This community was born from the ashes of despair, a vehicle for order and for the shared assurance that we could not afford to falter again.
Our belief in this community is not a posture of moral superiority but an undying faith in the redemption of humanity. It is, therefore, with profound humility that I stand before you today as Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on behalf of President Bola Ametenebu, to renew this pledge on behalf of my country.
Madam President, Nigeria joins the Committee of Nations in congratulating you on your election as President of the General Assembly for the 88th session, and I assure you of our unalloyed support during your tenure. I commend your predecessor, my brother, His Excellency Philemon Young, and the Secretary-General, His Excellency Antonio Guterres, for their outstanding stewardship and unifying leadership during these extraordinary times.
This anniversary will not be a sentimental retreat into nostalgia. It must be a moment of truth, a pause to measure where we have stumbled and how we might have done better in turning our values into action that meets the demands of today. We are here to deliver a world of peace and development, where respect for human rights is paramount.
We must recalibrate the delicate balance between our roles as sovereign governments and our duties as collective partners to renew multilateralism in a world that has evolved far beyond what it was in 1945. The face of change across borders is a force without pause. It manifests in the tools of technology, in the movements of information and finance, in the corrosive ideologies that preach violence and division, in the gathering storm of the climate emergency, and in the tide of irregular migration. We must own this process of change.
When we speak of nuclear disarmament, the proliferation of small weapons, Security Council reform, peer access to trade and finance, and the conflicts and human suffering across the world, we must recognise the truth: this stands on our collective humanity. For all our careful diplomatic language, the slow pace of progress on these hardy perennials of the UN General Assembly debate has led some to look away from the multilateral model.
Some years ago, I noticed a shift at this gathering. Key events were beginning to take place outside this hall, and the most sought-after voices were no longer heads of state. These are indeed troubling times. Nigeria remains firmly convinced of the merits of multilateralism. But to sustain that conviction, we must show that existing structures are not set in stone. We must make real change, change that works, and change that is seen to work. If we fail, the direction of travel is already predictable.
We are here to strengthen the prospect for peace, development, and human rights. Madam President, I want to make four points today to outline how we can do this. One, Nigeria must have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. This should take place as part of a wider process of institutional reform. Two, we need urgent action to promote sovereign debt relief and access to trade and financing. Three, countries that host minerals must benefit from those minerals. And fourth, the digital divide must close. As our Presidential Secretary-General has said, AI must stand for Africa Included.
On my first point, the United Nations will recover its relevance only when it reflects the world as it is, not as it was. Nigeria’s journey tells this story with clarity. When the UN was founded, we were a colony of 20 million people, absent from the tables where decisions about our fate were taken. Today, we are a sovereign nation of 236 million people, projected to be the third most populous country in the world, with one of the youngest and most dynamic populations on Earth, a stabilising force in regional security, and a consistent partner in global peacemaking.
Our case for a permanent seat at the Security Council is a demand for fairness, for representation, and for reform that restores credibility to the very institution upon which the hope of multilateralism rests. This is why Nigeria stands firmly behind the UN80 initiative of the UN Secretary-General and the resolution adopted by this Assembly on 18th July 2025, a bold step to reform the wider United Nations system for greater relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness in the face of unprecedented financial strain.
We support the drive to rationalise structures and end the duplication of responsibilities and programmes so that this institution may speak with one voice and act with greater coherence. Madam President, none of us in this world can function peacefully in isolation. This is a heavy burden of sovereignty. Sovereignty is a covenant of shared responsibility, a recognition that our survival is bound to the survival of others.
To live up to this charge, we must work hand in hand with our neighbours and partners. We must follow the trails of weapons, of money, and of people. For these forces, too often driven by pestilence, non-state actors ignite the fires of conflict across our region.
Madam President, Nigeria’s soldiers and civilians carry a proud legacy. They have participated in 51 out of 60 United Nations peacekeeping operations since our independence in 1960. We have stood with our partners in Africa to resolve conflicts, and we continue that commitment today through the Multinational Joint Task Force.
At home, we confront this culture of insurgency that we have resolved from this long and difficult struggle with violent extremism. One truth stands clear. Military tactics may win battles measured in months and years, but in wars that span generations, it is values and ideas that deliver the ultimate victory.
We are despised by terrorists because we choose tolerance over tyranny. Their ambition is to divide us and to poison our humanity with a toxic rhetoric of hate. Our difference is the distance between shadow and light, between despair and hope, between the ruin of anarchy and the promise of order. We do not only fight wars. We pity and shelter the innocent victims of war.
This is why we are not indifferent to the devastations of our neighbours near and distant.
This is why we speak of the violence and aggression visited upon innocent civilians in Gaza, the illegal attack on Qatar, and the tensions that scarred the wider region. It is not only because of the culture of impunity that makes such acts intolerable, but also because our own bitter experience has taught us that such violence never ends where it begins.
Vice President Kashim Shettima speaking at the UN Asssembly
We do not believe that the sanctity of human life should be trapped in the corridors of endless debate. That is why we say, without stuttering and without doubt, that a two-state solution remains the most dignified path to lasting peace for the people of Palestine. For too long, this community has borne the weight of moral conflict. For too long, we have been caught in the crossfire of violence that opened the conscience of humanity.
We come not as partisans, but as peacemakers. We come as brothers and sisters of a shared world, a world that must never reduce the right to live into the currency of devious politics. The people of Palestine are not collateral damage in a civilisation searching for order. They are human beings, equal in worth, entitled to the same freedoms and dignities that the rest of us take for granted.
‘Ghana’s President Warns Against Normalising Anti-migrant ‘Hatred’
Meanwhile, Ghana’s president spoke out Thursday against normalising “hatred” toward migrants, days after his US counterpart, Donald Trump, gave a scathing speech to the United Nations, demanding closed borders.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, Ghanaian leader John Mahama said it was time to “dispense with the euphemisms and dog whistles and speak frankly” about Western leaders’ push against migration.
“We cannot normalise cruelty. We cannot normalise hatred. We cannot normalise xenophobia and racism,” he said.
Telling stories of African immigrants who have been successful in Western nations, Mahama said, “I dare say these are not invaders. These are not criminals.”
He pointed to the impact of climate change, which has hit African nations particularly hard, even though they bear little historic responsibility for the industrial emissions that have caused the planet’s rising temperatures.
“When the desert encroaches on our villages and towns and they become unlivable, we are forced to flee,” Mahama said.
He did not directly mention specific leaders, but Trump, speaking from the same rostrum on Tuesday, said of European countries accepting migrants: “Your countries are going to hell.”
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama speaking at the UN Assembly
Trump highlighted his mass deportation campaign and vowed to fight the “globalist migration agenda.”
Trump blamed migrants for crime. US statistics show that immigrants carry out fewer violent crimes than native-born Americans.
Despite Mahama’s strong words, he has cooperated with Trump by agreeing to accept non-Ghanaians deported from the United States.
