Nigeria has urged the international community to stop “naming and shaming” the country over security challenges, insisting that collaborative action is the only meaningful path to resolving illicit arms proliferation and related violence.
Nigeria has appealed to the international community to desist from “naming and shaming” the country over its security challenges, according to a report from BUSINESSDAY.
Speaking at the UN Security Council, Syndoph Endoni, Chargé d’Affaires of Nigeria’s Permanent Mission to the UN, warned that the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons continues to fuel terrorism, banditry and communal conflicts across Nigeria and the wider Sahel, describing the situation as both a humanitarian and developmental crisis.
He said, “We wish to stress that it is not by naming and shaming that we can solve this enormous problem but only by working together that the problem can be solved.”
His remarks followed the U.S. designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” over alleged Christian genocide—a label the Nigerian government rejects.
Endoni highlighted Nigeria’s domestic and regional actions, including the establishment of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, collaboration with ECOWAS and the Multinational Joint Task Force, and commitment to global arms control frameworks such as the Arms Trade Treaty.
He urged the Security Council to integrate small-arms control into peacebuilding efforts and called for enhanced international support in capacity-building, technology transfer and border security to tackle the root causes of instability across the Sahel.