Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf M. Tuggar, has said that Nigeria is cautious of Africa becoming the ground for the great power contestation that has been changed from a unipolar to a multi-polar world.
Ambassador Tuggar disclosed this at an interactive session in Washington, DC, United States of America.
The Minister, in a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media and Communications Strategy, Alkasim Abdulkadir, stated that though, there was rivalry on the continent of Africa among the top economies in the world, Nigeria’s bilateral partnerships with the US, China, and Russia showed its history of non-alignment.
“We are very wary of Africa becoming the ground for the great power contestation that has changed from a unipolar to a multi-polar world. Our outlook is that of strategic autonomy.
“We get along with everyone. We also have a history of non-alignment but we are democratic. We have had several successive elections since 1999. We don’t want to see any private military company or mercenaries on our continent”, he said.
Ambassador Tuggar added that Nigeria successfully tackled insecurity and conflicts in Sierra Leon and Liberia when it led the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), and is currently part of the Multinational Joint Task Force combating insecurity in Niger Republic, Cameron, and Chad.
In another development, the Minister called for an urgent reform of the United Nations Security Council to accommodate Nigeria as a permanent member.
The Minister, who made the call at an engagement forum in the United States of America, noted that the UN Security Council being a key governing organ of the world, ought to be democratized to include Nigeria, the largest country in Africa as a permanent member.
“We need to develop because we have been fighting terrorism for the last 15 years with homegrown solutions.”
The Minister added that the meeting in Washington D.C with US officials was also aimed at strengthening relationship between both countries as well as a follow-up on the Binational Commission meeting held last month in Nigeria.
“It is a follow-up to the very successful binational commission meetings which held in Abuja, Nigeria; and of course, to build on the gains that we have made so far with regards to our foreign policy agenda which is Democracy, Demography, Development and Diaspora, the 4Ds.
“Of course, Nigeria is the largest democratic country on the African continent with a population of over 220 million. We are set to become the third-largest county in the world by the year 2050 when we will have a population of 400 million.
