NIGERIA’s pro-Palestinian policy was abandoned for the first time ever when her United Nations permanent representative abstained from voting on a crucial United Nations Security Council resolution that would have ended Israel’s presence in the occupied territories by 2017.
The event occurred when the Nigerian permanent representative to the UN abstained from voting on a crucial resolution that would have ended Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip by 2017.
Palestinian OIC representative Muhannad al-Akluk blasted Nigeria in a statement on Wednesday, saying its abstention on Palestine, despite being a member of the OIC, was a “clear contradiction” and violated numerous resolutions passed at the Islamic organization’s summits in support of Palestine, Ma’an news agency reported.
Nigeria took the stance due to what analysts believed was influenced by the recent rapport between the government and the Israelis. Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, over the last two years has gone on pilgrimage to Israel and met up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Foreign policy analysts believed that Nigeria’s change in policy may not be unconnected to the recent tangible assistance given by Israel in the war against Boko Haram in the northeast. Israel, as opposed to the US, Britain and other traditional Western allies, which have been engaged in semantics, has given Nigeria concrete assistance in the form of drones, arms, military advisers and training that has helped Nigerian troops.
However, Palestine got eight votes, one short during the voting session which took place on Tuesday night. Australia and the US voted against the resolution, while Russia, China, France, Luxembourg, Jordan, Argentina, Chile and Chad voted for the resolution, with Nigeria, Britain, South Korea, Rwanda and Lithuania abstaining.
In another development, Nigeria’s abstention from the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood this week has been sharply attacked by the Palestinian representative to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the collective voice of the Muslim world, Reports Haaretz.
Both Nigeria, the population of which is evenly split between Muslims and Christians, and the Palestinian Authority are among the organization’s 57 member states.
He called on the OIC to deal internally with what he termed the “unacceptable” contradiction of a member state abstaining from the vote while European states voted in favor of the resolution.
While the stance of the United Stance against the resolution was not a surprise, Al-Akluk said, Nigeria’s abstention from voting was a “shock” and a disappointment for Palestinians.
The OIC itself also expressed deep regret at the failure of the UN Security Council to approve the Arab draft resolution seeking a three-year timeframe to end Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
OIC Secretary-General Iyad Amin Madani said in a statement that the OIC was astounded by the reasoning of the countries that rejected the draft resolution.
Those countries, he said, had forgotten that the Palestinians have spent more than 20 years at the negotiating table while Israel expanded settlements throughout the West Bank.
Nigeria’s relations with Israel have grown closer during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian. The president has twice visited Israel, the last being in October, when the two countries signed an agreement for direct air travel between them.
After the kidnapping of several hundred schoolgirls by Boko Haram last year, Israel sent anti-terror experts to participate in the search for them.
