Overlooked By The President

There is a good chance that the next United Nations Secretary-General will be a woman. There is also a good chance that the UN job will go to South America, with at least five of the nominated candidates coming from the region.

That, however, has not foreclosed the possibility that someone outside these two categories could be nominated and selected by the more than 190 member states.

Burundi has nominated Macky Sall, former president of Senegal. Argentina has nominated its own citizen, Rafael Grossi, who is the DG of the IAEA.

Other nominees are Michelle Jeria, a former President of Chile who was nominated by three countries, and Rebeca Mayufis, a former Vice President of Costa Rica and the current Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

More recently, Maria Espinosa Garces, twice Ecuador’s Foreign Minister and a Minister of Defense, and Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Carolyn Brikett, were nominated by their countries of origin.

As part of the selection process, they have all held interactive sessions with member states and NGOs espousing their agendas should they be elected.

But the President of the UNGA has still been begging member countries to nominate more candidates to replace Secretary-General António Guterres, whose term ends in January 2027.

There is another short list of diplomats and stateswomen rumoured to be possible replacements, but not formally nominated. Maybe the most well-known is Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand. On that speculated list is also Kristalina Georgieva, the current Managing Director of the IMF. Even Keir Starmer, Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister, made the list.

Then there is Nigeria’s own Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the UN and chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group.

Starting in 2012, she has had a long history of working with and advising the UN on sustainable development issues. That is long before Gueterez appointed her Deputy Secretary General.

Under Ban Ki-moon, Mohammed led the process that culminated in the global agreement on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Back in Nigeria, Mohammed worked with four successive presidents, from Olusegun Obasanjo, whom she helped manage debt relief funds amounting to a yearly budget of about $100 million, to Muhammadu Buhari, with whom she last worked as Environment Minister.

At a point in her career, she impressed Microsoft founder Bill Gates. She is a darling of the Western media. But clearly, the Nigerian Foreign Ministry is not so impressed.

And President Bola Tinubu sees no reason to raise her international profile by nominating her for the UN top job, even as a symbolic assertion of Nigeria’s place in the world.