FEATURE ARTICLE

Yahaya BalogunWednesday, September 20, 2017
[email protected]
Arizona, USA

UNITED NATIONS, NIGERIA AND THE UNITED STATES


think President Trump missed a great opportunity to reshape a moribund United Nations today. No nation is indispensable. The president's speech was a good presentation but very transactional and exaction in substance. It lacks coherent strategy to curb the excessive of the rogue nations. President Trump should have realized that he was not talking only to the American audience but to the whole wide world. The language of his speech is bombastic and clearly deviated from the American global leadership roles and exceptionalism. Protectionalism and isolationism are two nuances that won't help American leadership's creeds in the world affairs.

President Trump is playing into the noxious hands of the youthful exuberant and the recalcitrant Kin Jun Un of North Korea. I love some dictions in his presentation but at the end of the speech, I am more confused and concerned than being convinced by the President's bullish postures. United States' military intervention is becoming unfashionable, waste of human and material resources both at home and in the global affairs. American exceptionalism is not only built on its military might but built on her sense of inclusionalism, humanism and power of imagination for possibilities.�

The president's admonition for United Nation to restructuring its toothless, ineffectual and moribund entity is highly recommended and welcomed. It is soothing to hear President Trump mentioned restructuring; a borrowed cant from President Buhari of Nigeria, the new language in my rooted country's political lexicon. There is no gainsaying that United Nations has failed woefully in living to the tenets of its foundational establishment. It has failed abysmally to restore peace to a beleaguered world. President Buhari and President Trump are right in their indirect speeches that the organization has outlived its usefulness. It needs to restructure and recalibrate to meet the 21st century challenges. But my message to my homey president Buhari is that, charity begins at home too. Our word should be our bond. Nigeria too needs restructuring to meet the yearning, aspiration and the genuine agitation of the responsible citizens.

Honest and resourceful conversation are imperative now more than before in a nation still searching for her available but lost identity. I am proud to be a Nigerian in the diaspora. Nigeria used to be respected at the United Nations as a beacon of leadership in Africa. This giant stride evaporated through sustained bad leadership and corruption. President Buhari's presentation at the United Nations wasn't only brilliant, the reception of his incorruptible leadership and roles in Africa is a welcome development in the international community. The world is beginning to have respect and confidence in our country again. We will get there!

Menwhile, as a privileged citizen of the great nation of the United States of America, I implore President Trump and my country to thread it softly softly with a recalcitrant rogue nation begging for war with her. Unless American territorial integrity is threatened or attacked, we should refrain from triggering another war in the Asia Peninsula. We have the military capability to destroying Pyongyang not in a jiffy, but its long attendant consequences will be catastrophic and unpalatable for the world, including the United States.

We can't browbeat other nations and ask them to "go to hell" and still expect their cooperations in a period of global adversity. America should not walk away or breakaway from the historic global deal with Iran. Instead of rhetoric speeches and tweeters, or walking� away from the the nuclear deal, the power of diplomacy should be employed to fine tune and agree more on how to denuclearize a world in turmoil.

A jawjaw is imperative now, not a warwar with a "rocket man" and other "axis of evil" nations with hydra-headed dispositions. North Korea is a threat, not only to their citizens but to the troubled world.

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