National Youth Organizer for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Salam Mustapha, has urged African leaders to start boycotting the UN General Assembly.
He premises his argument on the fact that Africa, after all these years, does not have a permanent seat on the Security Council of the UN.
According to him, if the UN cannot respect the 54 African countries that are part of it, then there is no need to sponsor a huge delegation to the General Assembly every year.
His position expressed in a social media post read “I have watched president John Dramani Mahama’s speech this evening . I’ve also watched the speech of Kenya’s Ruto and I admire both for taking on the UN. Africa must begin to boycott the UN and it’s agencies if they can’t show respect to the continent. Africa deserves a permanent seat at the Security Council with Veto powers. If the UN cannot respect the 54 countries then there’s no point sponsoring huge delegations to the General Assembly every year”.
President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama while speaking at the UN General Assembly made a case for Africa and why there is a need for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.
He argued that Africa is the future and needs to be accorded the needed respect by the United Nations.
“Thirty years after Mandela made this same request, we are still asking: if not now, then when?” he told world leaders.
“The most powerful post-World War II nations are still being rewarded with an almost totalitarian guardianship over the rest of the world,” he observed.
“If this were truly the case, a continent as large as Africa with its numerous UN Member States would have at least one permanent seat on the Security Council.”
Mahama also questioned the unchecked veto authority wielded by the five permanent members, insisting it must be curtailed.
“There must be a mechanism for the General Assembly to challenge a veto. No single nation should be able to exercise an absolute veto to serve its own interests in a conflict,” he said.
Citing Nelson Mandela’s famous 1995 address to the UN, Mahama noted that Africa’s demand for inclusion had been ignored for three decades.
“So, today, Madam President, I stand here in this exact spot, asking: if not now, then when?” he declared.
