Nigeria assumes rotating chairmanship of United Nations Security Council for August

NIGERIA has assumed the rotating chairmanship on the United Nations Security Council with the country's permanent representative Professor Joy Ogwu taking over from New Zealand's Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen.

 

Under United Nations (UN) rules, the chairmanship of the Security Council is rotated every month among its 15 members. Nigeria is currently one of Africa's three non-permanent members of the council alongside Chad and Angola who are elected for two-year terms to sit alongside permanent members the US, UK, China, Russia and France.

 

Professor Ogwu will chair the council's meetings for the duration of August, making it the first time in the history of the UN that an elected member of the Security Council would assume the presidency in two separate tenures within five years. It will also be the fifth time since independence that Nigeria has been elected to serve on the Security Council.

 

Nigeria was elected a non-permanent member of the council on October 17 2013 and assumed its position in January 2014. Nigeria previously served on the council in 1966/67, 1978/79, 1994/95 and 2011/12.

 

Dr Tope Elias-Fatile of the Nigerian UN mission, said the country's return to the council in January 2014, after having left only in December 2012, represents one of the shortest periods in the annals of the UN that a member state has spent up to two terms in the council. He added that it is even more remarkable as it is occurring under the institutional memory of the same permanent representative Joy Ogwu.

 

Nigeria currently holds the chair of two Security Council committees. These are the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2048 (2012) concerning Guinea-Bissau and the Iraq Sanctions Committee pursuant to resolution 1518 (2003).