‘Significance Of Ban Ki-Moon’s Visit To Nigeria’

What do you think are the implications of Ban Ki- Moon visit to Nigeria?

If you look at Nigeria in the West African sub-region, you will discover that Nigeria is playing a political and economic hegemony in the sub-region. Most importantly, in the last dispensation, Nigeria was going down the drain with particular reference to insecurity.

Of course, no country is an Island on its own. No country can do it alone in the sense that as far as the comity of nations is concerned, under the United Nations, every country in the world has its own significance, irrespective of its smallness and so on and so forth. His coming to Nigeria shows that Nigeria is gaining a kind of political hegemony in the West African sub-region. What I am saying in essence is that his coming to Nigeria is a kind of showing that Nigeria is playing a leadership role in Africa.

In the course of meeting President Muhammadu Buhari, a bomb detonated in the Northern Eastern part of Nigeria, precisely Yobe State. It was a twin bomb. It therefore presupposes that Boko Haram was telling the West that ‘we are still around even though Ban Ki- Moon is in our country.’ And this has a kind of political implication. As a matter of fact, we understand the fact that Borno State is doing everything possible to quell Boko Haram insurgency.

Just last month, the permanent representative of Nigeria to the UN, Prof. Joy Ogwu was appointed to oversee the Affairs of the Security Council just for one month in July. That presupposes that they were testing the popularity of the wellness of Nigeria in the international system. All issues discussed in Nigeria will then be taken back to the UN. We have a representative there, it will be discussed immediately most especially now that the great nations of the world are now coming to Nigeria to come and invest.

The insecurity issue drove a lot of foreigners out of Nigeria during the previous dispensation, most especially in the North Eastern part of Nigeria. If you look at the Niger Delta, the boys are now saying that they will go back to the creeks if oil spillage and things like that cannot be taken care of. These are issues.