Tinubu to Guterres: I’m Ready to Take Tough Decisions Even if They Make Me Unpopular…

President Bola Tinubu, yesterday, told United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, that he was prepared to take tough decisions, even if they could make him temporarily unpopular, as long as the outcomes addressed challenges, such as poverty, hunger, among others, that had stunted economic growth in Nigeria.

Tinubu made the assertion at the UN headquarters in New York, when he spoke with Guterres, according to a statement by the president’s media adviser, Ajuri Ngelale.

The president declared that African nations would no longer accept a situation in which human rights advocacy was used by developed countries to stop developing economies from dealing decisively with actors, who illicitly siphoned and smuggled out the continent’s vast mineral resources. He said such individuals smuggled in western-made weapons, and enriched the wealthiest economies in the world at the expense of Africa’s stability and wealth creation.

He frowned on a situation where 70 percent of the resources devoted to the world’s poorest countries were spent and sent back out on overheads and administrative costs, which defeated their purpose.

The Nigerian leader noted that the UN must transform from being one of the world’s foremost talk shops on global issues into becoming the world’s foremost action coordination centre.

Responding, Guterres emphasised that the UN system was in the process of real reform that would largely address some of the institutional frailties and lack of decision-making power for the developing world, on whose behalf more than 75 per cent of UN resources were accrued.

Guterres assured Tinubu of the fullest support of the UN system for ECOWAS in the light of the series of military coups the West African sub-region had witnessed in the past few months and years.