President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Wednesday, restated call for Nigeria to secure a permanent seat at the Security Council of the United Nations (UN).

The president said this in his national statement during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, United States of America.

Represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, the president said Nigeria’s case for permanent seat at the Security Council is a demand for fairness, representation and reform.

He said: “We are here to strengthen the prospects for peace, development and human rights. Madam President, I want to make four points today to outline how we can do this: One: Nigeria must have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. This should take place as part of a wider process of institutional reform.

“Two: We need urgent action ⁠⁠to promote sovereign debt relief and access to trade and financing. Three: Countries that host minerals must benefit from those minerals. Four: The digital divide must close. As our friend the Secretary General has said: ‘A.I.’ must stand for ‘Africa Included’.

“On my first point: the United Nations will recover its relevance only when it reflects the world as it is, not as it was. Nigeria’s journey tells this story with clarity: when the UN was founded, we were a colony of 20 million people, absent from the tables where decisions about our fate were taken; today, we are a sovereign nation of over 236 million, projected to be the third most populous country in the world, with one of the youngest and most dynamic populations on earth.

“A stabilising force in regional security and a consistent partner in global peacekeeping, our case for permanent seat at the Security Council is a demand for fairness, for representation, and for reform that restores credibility to the very institution upon which the hope of multilateralism rests.

“This is why Nigeria stands firmly behind the UN80 Initiative of the Secretary-General, and the resolution adopted by this Assembly on 18 July 2025, a bold step to reform the wider United Nations system for greater relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness in the face of unprecedented financial strain. We support the drive to rationalise structures and end the duplication of responsibilities and programmes, so that this institution may speak with one voice and act with greater coherence.”

…On global peace

On how to achieve global peace, Tinubu said: “Madam President, None of us can achieve a peaceful world in isolation. This is the heavy burden of sovereignty. Sovereignty is a covenant of shared responsibility, a recognition that our survival is bound to the survival of others.

“To live up to this charge, we must walk hand in hand with our neighbours and partners. We must follow the trails of weapons, of money, and of people. For these forces, too often driven by faceless non-state actors, ignite the fires of conflict across our region.

“Madam President, Nigeria’s soldiers and civilians carry a proud legacy. They have participated in 51 out of 60 United Nations peacekeeping operations since our independence in 1960.

“We have stood with our partners in Africa to resolve conflicts, and we continue that commitment today through the Multinational Joint Task Force. At home, we confront the scourge of insurgency with resolve. From this long and difficult struggle with violent extremism, one truth stands clear: military tactics may win battles measured in months and years, but in wars that span generations, it is values and ideas that deliver the ultimate victory.

“We are despised by terrorists because we choose tolerance over tyranny. Their ambition is to divide us and to poison our humanity with a toxic rhetoric of hate. Our difference is the distance between shadow and light, between despair and hope, between the ruin of anarchy and the promise of order. We do not only fight wars, we feed and shelter the innocent victims of war.

“This is why we are not indifferent to the devastations of our neighbours, near and distant. This is why we speak of the violence and aggression visited upon innocent civilians in Gaza, the illegal attack on Qatar, and the tensions that scar the wider region. It is not only because of the culture of impunity that makes such acts intolerable, but because our own bitter experience has taught us that such violence never ends where it begins.”

“We do not believe that the sanctity of human life should be trapped in the corridors of endless debate. That is why we say, without stuttering and without doubt, that a two-state solution remains the most dignified path to lasting peace for the people of Palestine. For too long, this community has borne the weight of moral conflict.

“For too long, we have been caught in the crossfire of violence that offends the conscience of humanity. We come not as partisans, but as peacemakers. We come as brothers and sisters of a shared world, a world that must never reduce the right to live into the currency of devious politics. The people of Palestine are not collateral damage in a civilisation searching for order. They are human beings, equal in worth, entitled to the same freedoms and dignities that the rest of us take for granted.

“We want to make the choice crystal clear: civilised values over fear, civilised values over vengeance, civilised values over bloodshed. We show the opportunities that peace brings, just as the extremist hopes to drive apart rival communities and different religions. We work through multilateral platforms within the rule of law, to build the consensus and support that makes this immensely difficult and dangerous task that much easier.

“This is how we deny our enemies the space they crave to fuel tension and despair. It is our experience that this offers the best, perhaps only hope for peace, reconciliation and victory for the civilised values of a shared humanity. Nigeria, as a diverse country, also recognises the variable geometry of Democracy, its different forms and speeds. For this reason, we are working with the United Nations to strengthen Democratic institutions in our region and beyond, through the Regional Partnership for Democracy”, he added.

Continuing, the Nigeria leader added: “Madam President, Point two: the price of peace is eternal vigilance. The increasingly difficult security outlook has prompted many Member States to count the cost of the emerging world order. We in Nigeria are already familiar with such difficult choices: infrastructure renewal or defence platforms? Schools or tanks?

“Our view is that the path to sustainable peace lies in growth and prosperity. The government has taken difficult but necessary steps to restructure our economy and remove distortions, including subsidies and currency controls that benefited the few at the expense of the many.”

The president also stressed the need for collaboration against insurgency, saying the price of peace is eternal vigilance.

...On economy

Making a case for some economic progression, the president said:  “I believe in the power of the market to transform. Our task is to enable and facilitate, and to trust in the ingenuity and enterprise of the people. But the process of transition is difficult and brings unavoidable hardship. This year, we held the inaugural West Africa Economic Summit in Abuja to bring investors and opportunities together. The results exceeded our expectations and are a clear indication of what innovation can deliver.

“It is in that same spirit of dynamic review that I invite the United Nations to re-examine the best use of scarce resources. One critical area is climate change. It is not an abstract issue about an indeterminate fate, to be settled at some distant point in the future. It is not even solely an environmental issue. It is about national, regional, and international security. It is about irregular migration. Truly, this is an “everyone issue.” We are all stakeholders, and we are all beneficiaries of the best outcomes.”

He said relevant ministers have been instructed to work with the United Nations to make the best use of climate funds.

“We believe there are huge, shared dividends to accrue from increased support for education, for resilient housing, for access to technology and financing to allow vulnerable communities to thrive: to become part of solutions, rather than problems,” he said.

He said Nigeria and Africa have made significant strides in recent years to put their affairs in order, stressing that “we can take that progress to the next level, a level that presents new opportunities for trade, investment and profit, if we can access reforms to strengthen the international financial architecture.”

…Court for sovereign debt

The president also called for a new and binding mechanism to manage sovereign debt, a sort of International Court of Justice for money that will allow emerging economies to escape the economic straitjacket of primary production of unprocessed exports.

“It has been over for decades since the Lagos Action Plan outlined a route away from debt and dependence that highlighted opportunities, that today should still be explored for local added value for processing and manufacturing in everything from agriculture to solid minerals and petrochemicals.

“The African Continental Free Trade Area is a remarkable achievement of co-operation. We remain fully committed to the achievement of SDGs – and are convinced this can be best delivered by focusing principally on our primary mission of growth and prosperity,” he said.