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President Muhammadu Buhari addressed the 76th United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, in New York, the United States of America on Friday.
During the address, President Buhari assured the Assembly of the full support and cooperation of the Nigerian delegation.
The President further commended the immediate past leadership of UNGA for the many remarkable achievements despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here is the full text of the speech read by the Nigerian leader at the event:
Permit me to congratulate the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, on his re-election and commend his strong commitment to making the UN more alive to its responsibilities.
I also want to express my gratitude to him for re-appointing Ms. Amina Mohammed, as the Deputy Secretary-General to assist him in discharging his heavy responsibilities.
The theme of this year’s General Assembly – “Building resilience through hope – to recover from COVID-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of the people, and revitalise the United Nations, sums up our common desire to rescue our planet, recover our economies, and restore hope to all the peoples of the world.
In this regard, my delegation will continue to support the United Nations, as the indispensable forum for international cooperation and the cornerstone of the multilateral system, rooted in respect for international law, including international human rights law and predicated on a rules-based order.
I want to thank the international community for the concerted response to COVID-19. The solidarity and drive to contain the first truly global health emergency of our time is a pointer to the many things we can achieve if we work together.
On our part, Nigeria has made strenuous efforts to contain the virus and halt its deadly onslaught on our people. Our efforts have been rewarded with moderate success.
At the outset, we recognised detection and contact tracing to be important tools in combating the virus. In this connection, from a mere four laboratories with testing and detection capacities, we ramped up the facilities to over 140 centres today.
Similarly, we built isolation centres and emergency hospitals wards in record time all over the country. We carry out genomic sequencing in designated laboratories across the country with a view to detecting variants in circulation.
In addition, over 40,000 health care workers have recently been trained on Infection, Prevention and Control measures with the support of various partners. Through the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, we have established 16 infectious disease treatment centres located within our Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centres.
Nigeria remains grateful for the assistance received from our partners and friends all over the world. Vaccination is the key to our safe emergence from the pandemic. We fully support the COVAX initiative from which we have benefitted. We also thank the United States of America, Turkey, India, China, the European Union, and others for the vaccines provided.
Despite the acknowledgement, however, I would like to reiterate my call for a fairer and more equitable distribution of vaccines to all countries so that, together, we can fight and contain the pandemic…
