UN permanent Security Council membership won’t come to Nigeria on a platter – Amb. Lolo

Ambassador Bulus Lolo, a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke with Daily Trust on Nigeria’s push for permanent security seats for Africa at the UN Security Council. The former diplomat, who has also been at the United Nations General Assembly for at least five years, touched on President Bola Tinubu’s absence […]

Ambassador Bulus Lolo, a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke with Daily Trust on Nigeria’s push for permanent security seats for Africa at the UN Security Council. The former diplomat, who has also been at the United Nations General Assembly for at least five years, touched on President Bola Tinubu’s absence at the UN General Assembly in the last two years, among others.

 

Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said the United Nations was born in a world scarred by war. Today, with more urgent and intertwined calls for unity over chaos, law over lawlessness. Is the United Nations what it’s supposed to be?

The UN can only be as good as the member states make it to be. Meaning, it is not the organisation that will make itself good; and who are the members of the United Nations? They are the same countries. Now, imagine Donald Trump lamenting against the UN as if it is not his administration that is undermining the UN.

If you go into the UN Charter, you will see that it was formed, as you said, in the wake of the ashes of the Second World War. And then the Charter says to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Who are the people fighting the wars? The very people who are critical of the United Nations. And so, to me, it’s multilateralism as opposed to unilateralism. And what is unilateralism? Unilateralism is the concentration of power in one place, one centre, one country. In contrast, multilateralism is the combination of efforts by at least three or more entities, whether individuals, countries, or organisations. The prefix multi means anything more than three.

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And so, if multilateralism is about collective effort, multilateralism is shared responsibility.

You want to minimise the abuse of power, yet you see countries stepping out today; they are the be-all end-all of the world. It is their way or the highway. That is what is happening with America. Each time you find a change in administration between the Democrats and the Republicans, this debate comes to the fore. The Republicans are of the view that they are ceding America’s sovereignty to the UN, forgetting that it is America that leads the democratic world. So, it has a responsibility. By failing, it only means that states are failing in their responsibility.

That’s why you have terrorist groups operating freely. All because member states have put narrow interest at the expense of the interests of humanity. If we reconcile ourselves on the basis of our common humanity, then the things we do will be more humane. You are not going to have Gaza as it is today, you are not going to have Sudan as it is today, as well as other hotspots where people are dying needlessly.

Where there is an absence of effective leadership, there is chaos. America, under Trump, is not leading the world in the right direction. Yes, it’s one thing he campaigned on, ‘making America great again’. Ronald Reagan said the greatness of America lies in its ability to bring in every foreigner who wants to be in America and make them an American citizen. And that when America fails to do that, America will lose its leadership. Now, a narrow-minded person is in the White House who sees things only in the prism of America as defined by him.

So, for the world to be better, for there to be less chaos, end the war in Ukraine, end the war in Gaza, and be more orderly and humane in the treatment of migrants.

 

Can we say Nigeria is missing out in the last two years of the United Nations?

Well, yes, in a way. There are four elements when you go to the UN. Number one, there is the issue of expectation. Nigeria is seen as the pride of Africa by African diplomats who are accredited to the United Nations. So, they expect to see the highest quality of representation from Africa.

Number two, there is the optical impression. People line up to take a group photograph. You want to count and see the number of presidents from Africa who are on the podium in that picture. Probably on the front row. So, if that opportunity presents itself and another person is representing Nigeria. People would say, ‘but Nigeria has President Bola Tinubu as the head of state. Why is he not there?’

Then, the third element is the symbolism of the representation – Security Council.

Is it because Nigeria is advocating for a permanent seat that Nigeria will be given a permanent seat, or will Nigeria get the permanent seat because it has demonstrated that it is deserving of the permanent representation? That’s the issue of symbolism there.

Then the last point is the strategic importance of being represented at the highest level. And what is a strategy? A strategy is simply your planning through identification and specification of a particular interest. Then you set about to work to achieve that interest. Is it in our strategic interest to be represented at a level lower than our president? Now, I’m not questioning why the president has not gone.

 

How does it look? Our readers would like to know, as a diplomat, as an insider, even though you’re a retired permanent secretary.

I’m retired. I have no insight.

 

But is it normal?

Well, yes. If it is not normal, why would it be done? But the issue is, is that the best we can do? Is that the best that Nigeria can do? And I’ve given you four grounds. The issue of expectations, the optics, the symbolism and the strategic importance of having the highest. Don’t forget that the United Nations General Assembly is the highest diplomatic stage that you have. It only meets once a year and in 2025, it is the 80th anniversary. So, it’s actually a landmark. Whatever reason the president has for not going, well, thank God we’re not absent because the vice president was there. But diplomacy is a funny game where people are ranked consciously and are sensitive.

If today, let’s say, the vice president requests to meet the president of Turkey. They’ll say, ‘Oh, he’s a vice president.’ They will not grant him access because a vice president of one country is requesting to meet the president of another country.

People believe Tinubu has a penchant for travelling to the mildest event. And even this time around, you know, he cut short his working leave. Of course, some people said it was likely because of the issue in Rivers State, while others said it was probably to come and prepare for this.

To be honest, there was a legitimate expectation. The president went to Japan, from Japan to Brazil and from Brazil, he went to France. Now, if those three meetings were that important, combined, they were not more important than the 80th anniversary of the UN General Assembly. But I’m not questioning him and I’m not suggesting anything.

 

Some are saying that he probably wants to be part of the Olubadan coronation. Funny enough, is that more important than being at the UN?

But they said maybe he’s trying to run away from the US because of the allegations surrounding his life.

No, our relationship with America is such that President Tinubu has been in and out of America before he even became head of state. And if that was not used against him, I don’t see it happening. I don’t see America arresting President Tinubu on charges that relate to whatever people are talking about.

 

Diplomats believe that a political leader is as good as the people surrounding him. Do you think he is being adequately briefed on the importance of governance, to skip it twice?

Please don’t question the intellect of President Tinubu. Don’t take for granted the years of experience that he has garnered. Yes, there is that nexus – that connection between domestic and foreign policy, as we say in international relations, but it’s not for lack of advice that some of these decisions are made.

 

I know you’ve been at the United Nations, playing different roles. Were there presidents, especially from Nigeria, who skipped this?

The only president that did not engage actively was General (Sani) Abacha. That was because he had a peculiar circumstance. All other presidents before him and after, President Obasanjo, for instance, were all over the place. And he did not miss a single general assembly.

During President Muhammadu Buhari’s term, I was the permanent secretary and, at the time, overseeing the office of the foreign minister because in 2015, President Buhari did not constitute his cabinet early. So, for five months, there were no ministers. All permanent secretaries in the office then served as acting ministers. I led the preparations in 2015 for Buhari’s first attendance as a civilian president at the United Nations. His engagement then was robust, and subsequently, he attended nearly all. I want to believe that Buhari did not skip.

To be honest, I count the vice president to be extremely lucky because he has stood on that stage twice, back-to-back. If for nothing, he has it on record that he has stood on the floor of the podium of the United Nations General Assembly. How many people have that opportunity?

 

Two years down the line, we don’t have ambassadors. Have we ever had something like this?

Never. This is a record that has been set inadvertently, I would say, of leaving our embassies without substantive heads of mission. I’m out of the system, so I have no authoritative reasons or explanation to give. This administration has gone past the halfway mark, and there are no ambassadors. I can say from my own experience that from the time you appoint and the ambassadorial nominees go through their clearance in the Senate, except for those going to places like New York or Geneva, which are multilateral missions and do not need what we call a Agrément, it takes a minimum of six months from appointment to deployment. And if you go there in six months, you take another six months to 12 months to settle down at your post, to understand what you are there to do.

Now, the administration has already done two years, we’re in September, and in a couple of days we will be in the last quarter of 2025. So, even if appointments were to be done today, it will take around a year for the ambassadors to settle. It will not be cost-effective because the tradition is that each government tends to appoint its own heads of mission.

But by and large, guess what? Ambassadorial appointments are the prerogative of the president.

 

 Does that mean that it is not important?

No, no, no, no.

 

How important is an ambassador and who is an ambassador?

I’m sure some will say, after all, we are saving money by not sending them. Yes, you can save money, but the gains you derive by having an embassy in a foreign country cannot easily be quantified in Naira and Kobo.

It’s beyond that. Your ambassador is the personal representative of your sovereign, which is the president. That’s why when you are at post, they refer to you as excellency. They accord the recognition because your letter appointing you as ambassador is from one head of state to a fellow head of state by name, and it states that whatever that person says in the name of the sender, you should believe and accept it.

Also, you promote friendly relations. Three, you negotiate on behalf of your country. Four, you protect the interests of your country and your nationals where you have been posted. And number five, you also cultivate business opportunities and you speak, you act on behalf of your own people.

More so, you also defend the interests of your country in the country where you are represented.

 

Now, who has been defending our interests in the last two years?

Our embassies are not closed, but I dare say, having been an ambassador myself to Ethiopia, it is the highest level of representation outside the country that you can have. There are those countries where you have diplomatic relations, but you decide not at the level of an ambassador or not even at the level of an embassy. But where you have an embassy and you choose not to appoint an ambassador, it must be that you are doing that calculation in your own interest

I served for 35 years before I retired from the foreign mission, and in all those 35 years of service, I do not remember a single regime without ambassadors. These were the governments in place when I served. One, I was employed during President Shehu Shaghari. Two, General Muhammadu Buhari took over from Shagari. Three, General Ibrahim Babangida took over from General Buhari. Then, Abacha took over from General Babangida, then General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Then, President Obasanjo, I was still in service. President Ya’adua, I was still in service. President Jonathan, I was still in service. And President Buhari, before I retired. Not once did we have this long stretch of our embassies going without ambassadors.

 

What could be the factor? Is it that our president or those around him don’t really understand the importance of diplomacy?

To be honest, it’s a question I’ve been asking myself and I’ve not been able to get an answer because the only people who can give you the answer perhaps, are two or three people today.

The first is the president, and I can’t go to ask President Tinubu why. Number two, if I run into the foreign minister, I may ask him. And then number three, I’ll ask the permanent secretary. But if it’s a decision of the government based on fundamental reasons that we don’t know, then we must be patient and trust the judgment of the government.

 

Tell us how terrible Nigeria has become in terms of managing its international relations.

I’ll be careful not to use the word terrible but it only speaks to our style of diplomacy. I always talk about backdoor channels where you engage away from the full glare of cameras. You can achieve a lot quietly. But at the time that Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali left ECOWAS, the strength of ECOWAS dropped from 16 member states. Now, you are left with 12 member states. Are you better represented with 12 than with 16? No. So it is not good for you to lose a member in an organisation.

But then, how do you prevent the member from leaving? You are dealing here with an evolving political reality around our realm.

I really don’t know why things turned out the way they did in ECOWAS, but it wasn’t the best moment for ECOWAS when these three countries left.

 

Shetima, who represented Nigeria, made a strong case for permanent membership. Did his statement carry any weight?

It’s not anything new. But if you are asking if it will lead somewhere, it depends. The United Nations today is pluralised because the Security Council is pluralised. More so, I do not see and I have not sensed any appetite to reform the Security Council.

We lost it in 2005. Africa officially has asked for two. In Africa, who will take the two? Is it given that one country, naturally, for the asking will be given? And what am I hinting at here? Nigeria, wake up, it will not come on a platter.

 

For the first time in decades, we’ve seen more than half, if not nearly three-quarters of members endorsing the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. Will this lead somewhere?

It could, but it will fundamentally gain significance if the United States agrees. And the reason why I’m saying it is because for Palestine to be admitted, the Security Council must approve its membership according to the charter. And America will, for the foreseeable future, and especially under the present administration, not endorse the statehood of Palestine.

In terms of consequences, many believe that the Security Council is actually a dubious contraption because even if four agree and one says no, it won’t go through. Yeah, it is because of the veto.