The nexus between the United Nations Security Council reform and peacebuilding in Africa.

Abstract

The nexus between the United Nations Security Council reform and peacebuilding in Africa is underpinned by the recognition that the Security Council is the supreme organ of the UN; and its reform saga is a conundrum to Africa’s peacebuilding and security praxis. In assortment of ways, this study observes that the Council is created in atmospheres of major realpolitik and has unrepentantly deprived the African continent for 70 seventy years, of meaningful contribution. As the harbinger for global peace and security, the Council lacks geographic representativity and is bias towards Africa’s real peace which has fanned insecurity paradigm in the continent. The study recognises that African inclusion into the permanent chambers of the Council will entrench Africa’s role for global security and armistice. The African exclusion matrix is a clearly-thought-out strategy of the imperial forces in the Permanent Five (P5) which has processed economic deprivation - making the continent perpetually dependent on imperial powers, and politically marginalised - keeping the same at the periphery of the pot of global politics since 1945. In the current global community, peace in Africa is a call of worldwide significance due largely to the observation that, conflicts in Africa accounts for over calculated 70% of world conflicts. Conflicts destroy the pillars for peace and terminate Africa’s interest to succeed in containing insecurity regime in the region and elsewhere. Conversely, lack of Council’s restructuring has reinforced insecurity regime, and exacerbated the dependency syndrome in the thinking-faculty of African leaders. Actually, some African nations are with necessary capabilities to become permanent members of the Security Council, but US and allies are against African inclusion on the altar of maintaining the status quo and retaining the exclusive core for a realist outlook that, the League of Nations and United Nations are children of World Wars I and II respectively. However, the study among other things learnt that dependency on external actors and marginalisation of Africa may continue until Africa speaks one word with one voice. That is, to demand permanent seat with veto or simultaneously withdraws membership from the UN through the AU’s common front. The study, essentially, extended the frontiers of existing knowledge and expanded the horizons of facts on the Security Council reform, and peacebuilding in Africa.