The presidency of the Council is held by each of the members in turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of the Member States names.

By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah — Africanist Press

Here are the points:

A few days ago, we published historical data showing that being on the Security Council and sharing the one-month presidency of the Council is a normal ritual among UN member states. Being on the UN Security Council has nothing to do with any so-called unique status that Sierra Leone holds at the UN, neither has it anything to do with Maada Bio and SLPP’s leadership credentials.

Since 1946, African countries have served as presidents of the UN Security Council for a total of 141 times. This includes countries that are led by dictators of all descriptions. Mozambique is the latest African country that recently served a term in May 2024. They presided over Security Council meetings with a monthly program that had far more events than the current August program that Sierra Leone is moderating.

You didn’t get to hear any noise about Mozambique at the Security Council in May 2024 from Maada Bio and his brigade because they wanted to pretend that Sierra Leone was in fact the first African country to be at the UN Security Council. They also want you to believe that Maada Bio is the only African president that is presiding over a UN Security Council meeting. All the propaganda and deception around the UN Security Council is being executed by the Bio brigade and its allies in a desperate effort to legitimize Bio’s already troubled hijacking of state power in Sierra Leone following the controversial June 2023 elections.

In fact, in the 141 times that African countries have been on the Security Council, the meetings were MOSTLY and ALMOST always chaired by either the designated Permanent Representatives to the United Nations of the said countries, or in certain cases, the countries are represented by their foreign ministers. The presidents of such countries seldomly attend these ritualized rotating proceedings.

Over the years, a few African dictators (mostly politicians with troubled political situations in their countries) have in some cases hijacked the rotating UN Security Council presidential role from their Ambassadors or foreign ministers, and choose to play president of the Security Council for one session or more sessions of talk shows during the tenures of their countries at the Security Council. These African dictators that joined Security Council talk shows in recent years include Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast in December 2018, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in February 2019, and Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso in September 2008. Maada Bio of Sierra Leone is the latest African politician with a questionable presidential legitimacy to join this list of African dictators who likewise trooped to the Security Council with the intent of laundering soiled presidential legitimacies.

To further illustrate this, let us take the case of Ivory Coast’s Alhassane Ouattara who presided over the Security Council talk show in December 2018, and in December 2020, he enthroned himself as a third term president in Ivory Coast. His colleague and friend, Blaise Campaore had earlier led the Security Council talk show in September 2008, and in 2010, he also controversially declared himself president following a sham of an election. Few years later, Campaore then tried to amend the country’s constitution to extend his 27-year dictatorship but he was eventually kicked out of power by the young people of Burkina Faso in 2014.

These are just the few examples of the handful of African dictators who saw the Security Council rotating presidency as a launchpad to legitimize and advance authoritarianism in Africa.

But among the few African dictators who hijacked the roles of their foreign ministers or ambassadors to play the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, Maada Bio of Sierra Leone is the least developed by all standards of measurement. Maada Bio can’t fluently read a written script; Bio is the least sophisticated among Africa’s dictators; and Bio is also the least exposed intellectually and politically.

I will stop here for now until there is a need to further correct the amateur propaganda of the Maada Bio brigade and it’s vacillating allies within the rank opportunists of the compromised opposition in Sierra Leone.

Few days ago, we circulated the list of African countries that have presided over the Security Council since 1946. The list includes the names of people who represented their individual countries during the one month presidential tenures of their countries.

We encourage you to read the list and check the records to see who among Africa’s presidents have used their tax-payers money to blow the loud empty trumpets at the UN Security Council over the years. Then also check the political and economic records of those politicians in their countries, and the political and social upheavals that followed their tenures at the Security Council.

Knowing the past is essential to knowing the present, and to potentially plan for the future.

The list of African countries at the UN Security Council has been circulated on the Africanist Press WhatsApp Forums. Feel free to circulate the list.