Former Nigerian External Affairs Minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has called for urgent and credible appointments to fill the country’s vacant ambassadorial positions.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Friday, Akinyemi emphasized the need for these posts to be occupied without delay.
“I believe credible appointments should be made to the vacant ambassadorial posts. We need to fill them,” he said.
He noted that while access to information via the internet is readily available, effective diplomacy still hinges on personal ambassadorial engagement.
“The absence of ambassadors does not deny us information. But diplomacy runs on ambassadorial contact, the interaction between governments and ambassadors,” he explained.
Akinyemi also stressed that ambassadors should return to their assignments as quickly as possible.
On the ongoing 80th United Nations General Assembly, he criticized President Bola Tinubu’s decision to delegate Vice President Kashim Shettima to represent Nigeria.
“Tinubu is more interested in transnational foreign policy that will bring economic foreign investment,” Akinyemi said, adding that the president himself should have addressed global leaders.
Meanwhile, Shettima met with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in New York on Friday, discussing Nigeria’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat, climate change, artificial intelligence, and development.
He urged the UN to “support Nigeria even more so that we achieve more” and, on behalf of President Tinubu, called for comprehensive UN reforms, warning that the organization risked irrelevance if it failed to evolve.
World Attention Needed on Insurgency
On security matters, Akinyemi highlighted the importance of drawing global attention to insurgency, which he described as a worldwide challenge.
“Nigeria deserves the support of world leaders. Insurgency is not a domestic affair,” he stated.
He reflected on how Libya’s collapse after Muammar Gaddafi’s death intensified instability across the Sahel and linked the ongoing crisis to international interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, which he said exacerbated extremism in Africa.
“This insurgency came across the Sahel, and we now face their activities in Nigeria. It is not just a Nigerian problem. We deserve support from the world community in confronting these jihadists,” he added.
The former minister also sounded a warning over the unregulated exploitation of Nigeria’s mineral resources.
“We must control the presence and exploitation of earth materials. If we fail, we have ourselves to blame,” he said, citing the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example where multinational companies profited at the expense of national interests.
