Nigeria at midnight assumed the one-month rotational presidency of the United Nations Security Council.

Nigeria’s Permanent Secretary to the United Nations took over from Ambassador Gerald Bohemen, the Permanent Representative of New Zealand, who held the presidency for the month of July 2015. Nigeria will occupy the position of UN Security Council Presidency throughout August 2015.

This is the first time in the history of the United Nations that an elected member of the Security Council would assume presidency for the fourth time in two separate tenures.

Nigeria was elected a non-permanent member of the Security Council on October 17, 2013.

With this feat, Nigeria is serving for the fifth time since independence of the most powerful decision-making organ of the United Nations.

A statement signed by Dr. Tope Elias-Fatile says that Nigeria’s return to the council, after having left in December 2012, represents one of the shortest periods in the anals of the United Nations that a member state has served two terms in the council.

According to Dr. Elias-Fatile, “This is even more remarkable, as it is occurring under institutional memory of the same Permanent Representative, Joy Ogwu, who chairs the two security council committees, the first, Security Council Committee, and Iraq Sanctions Committee.”

Nigeria is also one of the three vice chairs of the Security Council Committee, established on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and also one of the vice chairs of the Security Council Committee on Sudan.

•Adapted from a Channels TV report. Photo shows Nigeria's Permanent Representative, Prof. Joy Ogwu.

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