African Envoys Hopeful Of Leveraging On Nigeria’s UN Presidency

South Africa’s Ambassador to the UN, Kingsley Mamabolo, has said that resolving the crises in Africa should take the front burner as Nigeria presides over the UN Security Council meeting.

Mr Mamabolo made the statement during a visit to the Security Council President, Professor Joy Ogwu, on Tuesday.

African envoys at the UN are optimistic that Nigeria’s presidency of the UN Security Council would provide an opportunity to give attention to the security crises undermining the growth of the continent.

Mr Mamabolo expressed this expectations in his comments.

He said: “We are very happy that Nigeria is the chair of the Security Council and it means that the African issues that would be discussed this month in the security council will receive the attention that there were not receiving.

“One issue that is really standing out is the issue of South Sudan and hopefully an agreement has been signed and negotiations are going on.

“We needed to discuss that Africa should take leadership on all these issues and not wait until other people decide to jump in and take that leadership on our behalf”.

The South African envoy stressed the need for Africans to take the lead in what the Security Council would be discussing on August 25.

“We would want to see international support backing up the efforts that Africa is making on the continent.

“We know that we have been calling on people to create space for Africa to make sure that Africans can solve the problem, but that entails Africans taking the lead and giving an indication to the rest of the world as to what kind of support we would want to have,” he stressed.