Nigeria re-elected into UN Human Rights Council for ‘protection of all human rights’

Nigeria has won a re-election into the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva for the 2018 to 2020 term at an election held Monday at the UN Headquarters in New York.

The Ambassador/Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the UN, Amb Samson Itegboje, disclosed this in New York, adding that Ghana and Sierra Leone stepped down for Nigeria.

The Human Rights Council “is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 States responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe”, the UN states.

Itegboje said, “There were two slots for West Africa in the election and Ghana and Sierra Leone were also contesting.

“However, we reached an understanding that West African countries could not be antagonising themselves and that we have to reach a compromise.

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“So we got Ghana and Sierra Leone to step down for Nigeria. But even at that, there were a lot of reach out we had to do beyond West Africa.

“So this election has once again shown that Nigeria enjoyed a lot of goodwill not only among its West African bloc countries but also in Africa and across the world”.

With the re-election, Nigeria which is currently serving out its 2015 to 2017 term would be among the four countries representing West Africa and the 13 countries representing Africa in the 47-seat Council.

 

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