Talk about misplaced priorities! Don’t get me wrong,
#Africa! I’m not picking on President Ruto of
#Kenya alone.
xitter.mooo.com/PositiveEritrea/… Because I know he isn’t the only one who brought this up at the UN this week. Several other African leaders did the same on behalf of “the continent.” Mind you, African leaders have been singing this same song since 1995. But let’s be honest about what the continent actually looks like while they are doing it. Moreover, deep down, this isn’t even their own agenda.
Africa still cannot create enough jobs for its young people. Their own banking data shows a trillion-dollar development financing gap. Per-capita income is not rising fast enough to cut poverty. Overall growth of 4% looks good on a slide, but it barely outruns population growth. Then you have countries like Ethiopia and South Sudan claiming 10%, 12%, or 15% projected growth numbers pulled out of thin air. Meanwhile, debt service is eating up money for schools and clinics. Conflicts keep landing on the UN Security Council agenda like clockwork, forcing major powers to intervene to protect their own interests. Yet, year after year, the same demand returns: two permanent seats, veto included.
Of course, the dates give the game away. Japan and Germany started making their case in 1991–92, right after the Soviet Union collapsed. These countries were already among the UN’s largest financial contributors and saw an opening. The OAU (now the AU) produced its first text, the Harare Declaration, in June 1997, just about five years later. Then the G4 (India, Brazil, Germany, Japan) came tighter in September 2004 and ran a resolution at the UN in 2005 that conveniently included two African seats. Only after that did the African Union, shamelessly, issue the “Ezulwini Consensus” in March 2005 and the “Sirte Declaration” that July.
The most polished African documents only arrived after those four countries bundled their own bids and needed General Assembly votes. It is not even an African agenda. Yeap, I said it.
This timeline is no accident. Changing the Council requires a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly and approval by every current permanent member. Fifty four African votes are very useful. The G4 proposal reserved two permanent seats for Africa from the start because a big package had a better chance of passing. There you have it! African leaders adopted the demand and kept repeating it like water carriers ever since. The G4 gets a larger coalition for their own seats, and African governments get a talking point that sounds like historical justice or a shameless badge of honor for being international beggars.
None of this means representation doesn't matter on the surface. A Council that spends most of its time on African crises without a permanent African member is obviously outdated. But treating a New York seat as a top priority while the things that actually matter, ie jobs, infrastructure, the economy, and security, are left to rot is a disgraceful choice. The timeline doesn’t lie: it shows exactly who opened the file, and who is just shamelessly begging for a spot in the line.
The energy spent by the likes of President Ruto and others on a UN Charter amendment that has gone nowhere for thirty years could have been used to demand other stuff to solve real problems. It could have been used to make African states self-reliant instead of dependent on the very Council they want to join.
This is because it is clear that a committee seat in New York does not build a factory, pay a teacher, or stop a war. The rest is just performance. We have mountains of proof.
Now go ahead. Tell me why the New York chair is the urgent item and the factory, the teacher, and the ceasefire can wait. I’ll read it 😂
- KA
Eritrea First