Nigeria, 2003

On behalf of the

Government and people of Nigeria, I would like to

congratulate you, Sir, on your election as the President

of the fifty-eighth session of the General Assembly. I

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assure you of the cooperation and support of my

delegation in ensuring a successful outcome to this

session. Permit me also to acknowledge the excellent

work done by your predecessor, Mr. Jan Kavan. I also

wish to commend the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi

Annan, for his tireless efforts, vision and leadership,

and for his inspiring address to the General Assembly

this morning.

In recent months, many voices inside and outside

of Governments have questioned the utility, relevance

and efficacy of the United Nations, the only universal

multilateral tool at our disposal. Even more tragically,

sinister forces have taken aim at the United Nations

and its dedicated staff, as demonstrated by the

senseless attack on the United Nations compound in

Baghdad. My Government once again joins the

international community in condemning that heartless

action, which claimed the lives of so many talented and

dedicated staff members. We share the sorrow of the

Secretary-General and his staff, and extend our

heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. In that

connection, I wish to reaffirm my country’s total

commitment to, and support for, our Organization.

My Government is deeply concerned about the

persistence of conflicts in many regions of the world,

and in particular in our subregion of West Africa. The

conflict in Liberia has again tested the will of the

international community to respond proactively to

conflicts and to the humanitarian catastrophes they

leave in their wake. The decision of the Economic

Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to

deploy troops to Liberia in the face of obvious

hesitation by the international community and despite

the strain it placed our resources was therefore

indicative of our determination to show that we will

not stand by wringing our hands when such

catastrophic events occur in our neighbourhood. We are

greatly relieved that our forward deployment of troops

and the initiative to remove the former Liberian

President from the scene have had such an immediate

calming effect, which will hopefully be further

reinforced by the deployment of a United Nations

peacekeeping force.

I therefore wish to assure the General Assembly

that Nigeria appreciates the decision taken by the

Security Council in resolution 1509 (2003), of 19

September 2003, to authorize a multisectoral

peacekeeping mission in Liberia in order to continue

the achievement of the ECOWAS initiative. I should

like to emphasize the fact that if regional organizations

are to play the lead role that the United Nations is

increasingly demanding, the international community

will not be able to escape its own responsibility to do

much more to strengthen the requisite capacities of

such organizations.

Let me now turn to another subject that is closely

related to the conflicts in Africa. The proliferation of

small arms and light weapons has been identified as

one of the major factors fuelling conflicts. An effective

strategy to deal with that proliferation entails

controlling the illicit trade in that category of weapons

emanating from the countries where they originate, as

well as controlling their transfer to intermediaries and

arms merchants. We therefore call for an early

conclusion of negotiations on a legally binding

international instrument to control the indiscriminate

supply of small arms and light weapons, especially to

non-State actors. In keeping with our commitment to

the eradication of those weapons, ECOWAS has

already established and renewed a moratorium on the

importation of small arms and light weapons. To make

that moratorium as effective as intended, we call for

effective cooperation on the part of all producing

countries.

In April 2003, the people of Nigeria reaffirmed

their commitment to good governance and democracy

by holding successful elections. Following our 1999

elections, which marked the transition from military to

civilian Government, last April’s election represented

both our first civilian-to-civilian transition and a

consolidation of our democratic process. I consider my

re-election to a second — and under our Constitution,

my last — term of office not only as a vote of

confidence but also as a great challenge to deliver the

dividends of democracy to our citizens. To meet that

challenge, my Government has developed a programme

of economic reforms, the National Economic

Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS).

The programme, which places people first, is aimed at

laying a solid foundation for sustainable socio-

economic transformation and poverty eradication. By

its design, it will strengthen governance, enhance

transparency, intensify the fight against corruption and

develop infrastructure — especially in the areas of

electricity, water and roads. It also places high priority

on food security, agricultural development and the

promotion of small- and medium-scale enterprises.

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I believe that that ambitious economic reform

will constitute an important national contribution to the

attainment of the targets of the Millennium

Development Goals and of the objectives of the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). In that

connection, my Government’s new reform programme

is a clarion call to national mobilization and re-

orientation. However, it also envisages active

cooperation by our multilateral and bilateral partners.

We are all too well aware that the development of our

agricultural sector, by which the majority of our people

still earn their living, cannot be successful as long as

huge subsidies to agriculture in the developed countries

continue. My Government, therefore, wishes to use this

forum to call again for the reform of the system of

subsidies to agricultural production, which is

strangulating agriculture in developing countries.

In this connection, it is regrettable that the

reasonable proposals made by the group of developing

countries at the recently concluded World Trade

Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Cancún

were rejected by their negotiating partners, leading to

the collapse of the Conference. Creating conditions of

fair and undistorted trade would be the most effective

way of providing additional resources to developing

countries. This is particularly urgent in light of the low

levels of official development assistance and the recent

sharp decline in the flow of foreign direct investment.

Other areas that we hope the international

community will address with determination include the

problem of external debt. This continues to be a major

obstacle to the development of my country and many

other African countries. It is evident that the various

initiatives by the international community on debt

relief and debt management have been able neither to

address nor solve the problems.

While appreciating the efforts by the international

community in the context of the Heavily Indebted Poor

Countries (HIPC) initiative, we must observe that these

efforts have not provided adequate responses or

solutions to the problems. This is even more true in the

case of the heavily indebted middle-income countries,

like Nigeria, for whom no special debt relief

mechanism exists, although such machinery was

successfully established for countries in Eastern and

Central Europe, for instance.

Nigeria believes, therefore, that bolder steps must

be taken to resolve the heavy debt burden, which for a

large number of countries has become unsustainable

and a hindrance to development. I am afraid that we

have no effective mechanism in place to tackle this

problem. Neither the Bretton Woods institutions nor the

Paris and London Clubs alone can provide lasting

solutions and relief. I therefore believe that this issue is

of such significance for the peace and development of

such a large portion of the world community that we

need to create a mechanism within the United Nations

to address the problem in its full scope, based on the

principle of the joint responsibility of debtors and

creditors alike.

We welcome the ongoing negotiations for a

legally binding instrument on the repatriation of

illicitly acquired funds stashed away in foreign

countries. We call for the early conclusion of the

Convention on that issue. This Convention is expected

to make more resources available for development and

show concretely the global commitment to eradicating

large-scale corruption, which is at the origin of the

funds. In this connection, I must say that the

experience of my country has been one of only

lukewarm cooperation by most countries where our

looted funds have been traced. Our partners among the

great banking nations should recognize that it is

contradictory to condemn corruption on the one hand,

and, on the other, to hinder us in the recovery of the

plundered funds. For our economic and social reform

programmes, the funds to be recovered can make a

huge difference in meeting our national objectives. I

earnestly appeal through this forum for maximum

cooperation in repatriating the looted funds. I take this

opportunity to thank those countries that have matched

their words with actions in assisting us in repatriating

looted funds.

Last year, this Assembly endorsed the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as the

framework for development of the continent. We

commend the Group of 8 for their Africa Action Plan

to support the implementation of NEPAD and hope that

this will soon be translated into cooperation on specific

programmes and projects. In addition, we hope that the

developed countries will also concretely demonstrate

their support for NEPAD.

For our part in Nigeria, the Government’s

economic reform programme is a commitment to

continue to make our contribution to an African

renaissance, which will underpin NEPAD.

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We welcome the establishment by the United

Nations of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa

and urge that adequate resources be provided for its

mandate to be discharged effectively.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to ravage our

continent, affecting most of all the productive segment

of the population. To combat the epidemic, my

Government has embarked on a major national

programme of action, the highlight of which consists of

a nationwide public enlightenment campaign and mass

mobilization to deepen awareness and understanding of

the disease, the prevention and control of its spread and

modalities for providing care and support for people

living with the virus. To contribute to the global

programme on HIV/AIDS, Nigeria has redeemed its

pledge of $10,000,000 to the Global Fund.

Let me urge all countries that have not yet made

pledges to the Global Fund to do so urgently. Those

that have made pledges should kindly redeem them

early. I wish to acknowledge with gratitude, the efforts

so far deployed by the international community on the

pandemic, and to thank Secretary-General Kofi Annan

for convening yesterday the high-level plenary meeting

devoted to HIV/AIDS. However, a lot still needs to be

done in a more concerted way to address all aspects of

the problem, including the issue of more international

funding and access to affordable drugs. These actions

must be taken urgently if the Millennium Development

Goal of halting and reversing the spread of this dreaded

disease by 2015 is to be achieved.

The issue of terrorism has been of great

preoccupation to our Organization in the past few

years. Several instances of terrorist attacks continue to

surface in different parts of the world, involving the

loss of innocent lives and vast destruction of

properties.

Nigeria reiterates its condemnation of terrorism in

all its manifestations, and joins other Member States in

the global determination to combat this veritable threat

to national and international security. We support the

work of the Counter-Terrorism Committee, and

reaffirm our conviction that a comprehensive

convention on international terrorism will constitute an

important instrument for the protection of the

individual and collective rights to life.

The situation in the Middle East, which we had

hoped would improve with the adoption of the road

map for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, has again

deteriorated. We call on the parties to halt the new

cycle of violence — a cycle from which neither side

stands to gain. We believe that any violation of the

terms of the peace plan by either side does a great

disservice to the Palestinians, as well as to the Israelis.

We therefore appeal to both sides to demonstrate their

full commitment to the implementation of the plan so

as to create conditions for the peaceful coexistence of a

Palestinian State, side by side with the State of Israel.

In conclusion, I would like to comment briefly on

the issue of the reform of our Organization so as to

make it more responsive to contemporary global needs

and challenges. Nigeria has noted with dismay that

obstacles continue to be placed in the way of the

adoption of any of the constructive proposals for the

reform of the Security Council. The changes that are

being made in the Council’s working methods to make

it more open to non-members are appreciated; however,

these are no more than marginal. I wish again to

reiterate Nigeria’s long held conviction that what is

required is a more fundamental reform that would

democratize the Security Council and thus reposition it

to enable it to respond to issues of international peace

and security in a more comprehensive, objective and

effective manner. The overwhelming membership of

our Organization demands no less in the interest of its

continued relevance.

We cannot preach and endeavour to practise

participation and inclusiveness at the national level

while denying it at the global level of the United

Nations, and expect that all will be well. Yet we have

no substitute for this universal Organization. That point

is now becoming evident in the context of the current

situation of Iraq. Whatever the circumstances in which

the Iraqi war occurred, the role played by the United

Nations will be decisive in resolving the present

impasse. Our Organization has now established itself in

the post-conflict pacification of States. We can use that

vast United Nations experience to our advantage in

managing the current post-conflict situation in Iraq. We

now have the possibility of an independent democratic

Iraq, and we must not waste this opportunity.

One obvious point of disagreement relates to the

issue of decision-making, both prior to and after the

Iraqi war. This may be symptomatic of the

deficiencies — to which I alluded — that are not

conducive to the well-being of our Organization. Let us

therefore undertake the necessary reforms in order to

make our Organization work for all of us so that we

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can deal effectively and adequately with the pressing

issues of the twenty-first century.