Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday, showed that he cannot be bought over by his loyalty to world powers as he reportedly disappointed the US and UK governments.
Nigeria had alongside Angola, China and Venezuela, refused to vote on a Security Council resolution that would have dubbed the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war, a “crime of genocide”.
The Nigerian representative chose not to align with the US and the UK but to remain neutral, as it remains unclear if both countries’ leaders reached out to president Buhari for support on the vote or why Nigeria voted the way it did.
Suggestions emerged that this decision may not be unconnected to the fact that Buhari is yet to appoint a foreign minister, and apart from seeking international support for the war on the insurgent Boko Haram, has not defined his government’s foreign policy.
Premium Times reports that even Ogbole Ode, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said he had not been briefed on the reason the president took such decision.
This action may also be the president’s way of showing neutrality on global controversial issues despite the huge support garnered by Buhari prior to the March 28 presidential election from both world powerhouses.
Buhari, by this new development, also differed from his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, whose administration refused in December 2014, to support a resolution demanding an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine after the U.S. and Israeli presidents asked the Nigerian president not to support the resolution.
Bosnian Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic overran UN troops, and slaughtered about 8,000 Muslim men and boys who had sought refuge at Srebrenica which was supposed to be a UN safe haven On July 11, 1995.
Two international courts have called the slaughter genocide, but the UN has not dubbed it so largely based on opposition by Serbia and veto-wielding Russia, hence the need to have countries in its favour or against it.
On Wednesday, Russia condemned the draft resolution for singling out Bosnian Serbs for war crimes, and Nigeria’s refusal to get involved in the Palestinian vote meant it got only 8 votes, one short of 9 needed to approve the resolution, although it would still have been vetoed by the U.S. if it had passed.
“The draft that we have in front of us will not help peace in the Balkans but rather doom this region to tension,” AlJazeera quoted the Russian Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, as saying at the Security Council.
Russia, the only county that voted against the proposal, also vetoed the resolution.
Buhari has since his election, visited the UK and the G-7 Summit, where he presented a to-do list to some world leaders, and is also expected as a guest of president Barack Obama at the White House on July 20.
No comments:
Post a Comment