UNGA president urges global recommitment to nuclear disarmament

The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Amb. Tijani Muhammad-Bande, has called for global recommitment to nuclear disarmament.

The appeal came in a video message to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

No fewer than 130,000 people, mostly civilians, died after the United States detonated a uranium bomb above Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, during World War II.

Three days later on Aug. 9, the U.S. struck again, hitting Nagasaki with a nuclear weapon that forced Japan to surrender, thus ending the war.

Describing the incidents as a stain in the world’s history, Muhammad-Bande said they “demonstrate that there truly is no winner in a nuclear war.”

“When I visited Hiroshima last year, I met with a survivor and heard a first-hand account of the unimaginable horror caused by a nuclear bomb, and the impact upon generations who are still working to re-build their communities.

“We must re-commit to nuclear disarmament for there will never be a justification for the decimation caused by nuclear weapons,’’ he said.

Muhammad-Bande, who is Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, noted the formation of the organisation the same year to save the world from the scourge of war and engender global peace.

He lauded 40 countries that have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which he said was a milestone agreement in the field of nuclear disarmament.

The Nigerian envoy called on countries that had yet to sign to come on board to attain the 50 required for the agreement to take effect.

“In memory of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must prevent any such destruction from happening again.

“Let us work together to create the future we want: a future which is free from the existential threat of nuclear weapons,’’ he said.