When Boutros Boutros-Ghali became United Nations Secretary-General in 1992, Africa had shown that it could convert its numerical weight at the UN into political influence.
Four years later, when the United States vetoed Boutros-Ghali’s bid for a second term, African countries mobilised again. Several candidates entered the race, and in the end Ghana’s Kofi Annan became the second African to lead the world body.
Professor Ibrahim Gambari — Nigeria’s foreign minister in 1984–1985, its Permanent Representative to the UN from 1990 to 1999, and later a UN Under-Secretary-General — told TRT Afrika in an exclusive interview that the contrast between that era and today’s race is striking.
Gambari says Africa once approached the race with a clear and coordinated strategy. Today, he says, the continent lacks that same unity.
No common strategy as Africa enters UN race
The UN Security Council held its second informal poll on Friday, August 21, to determine António Guterres’ successor. Christina Markus Lassen, Denmark’s Permanent Representative to the UN and president of the Council for August, announced that the voting had been completed and that candidates would be informed through the permanent representatives of the states that nominated them.
The results were not officially announced.
According to tallies circulating after the vote, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, emerged as the frontrunner with eight “encourage” votes, while Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan, who led the first round with 10 votes, and Argentine Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, each received seven votes.
None of the eight candidates reached the nine votes required for the Council’s formal recommendation.
Former Senegalese President Macky Sall maintained his position from the first round with six “encourage” votes. Ugandan diplomat Olara Otunnu rose to five votes, up from two in the first round. The African Union has not formally endorsed either candidate.
Ibrahim Gambari was Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York when the continent secured the election of its two African Secretaries-General to date, and he played a key role in the process. He sums up the African Union’s candidate-selection process in one sentence: “There was simply no coordination, process or common strategy in the African Union on the matter.”
The strategy behind Africa’s UN campaigns
Africa did not rely on a single candidate from the outset during the campaigns that led to the election of the continent’s two UN secretaries-general. Gambari identifies five things the continent did then that it has not done this time. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as the continental body was known, had what he calls a ‘clear and united strategy’.
That strategy had been shaped by an earlier failure. In 1981, “Africa presented a single candidate, Salim Salim of Tanzania, who was vetoed by the Reagan administration,and left Africa with no fall-back position,” Gambari says. “Africa presented a slate of candidates which included Boutros-Ghali, Bernard Chidzero, Olusegun Obasanjo and others.”
The list was drawn up in consultation with African capitals. Gambari, who was Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN at the time, says the task fell on him.
“The OAU instructed me, as Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nigeria, as representative of the then Chairman of the OAU, to work with the African Group of Ambassadors to the UN, following consultations with their respective capitals, to generate list of candidates for the UNSG position and submit same to the AU Summit which took place in Abuja for consideration and adoption”
The Summit did not accept the list as it stood. “Boutros-Ghali was not on our initial list; Olara Otunnu of Uganda was,” Gambari says. “The Summit amended our list by including Boutros-Ghali and removing Otunnu as a result of opposition from President Museveni” He adds: “It is ironic that the same president, 35 years later, nominated the same person for the same position.”
The OAU Summit also established a political body to lead the campaign: “The Summit in Abuja also established a Committee of Heads of State and Government under the Chairmanship of President Babangida of Nigeria to meet and to steer the process of getting an African to emerge as the UN Secretary-General. This also happened.”
In parallel, lobbying was carried out within the Security Council. According to Gambari, Africa worked closely with the Non-Aligned Movement to seek support from the Movement’s members on the Council, with a clear request: “that they should not vote for any non-African candidate in the straw polls for secretary-general.”
The fifth element emerged after a lost round. “When Boutros-Ghali sought a second term, Africa reunited at the OAU Summit in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and adopted a resolution supporting his candidacy,” Gambari says.
“However, the United States vetoed Boutros-Ghali’s re-election, and the OAU again called on its member states to nominate candidates to replace Boutros-Ghali with another African. Several of them including Ghana did so and Kofi Annan emerged as the second UN Secretary-General from Africa”
For Gambari, Africa’s success came from political coordination, a structured continental process and the willingness to maintain a common strategy even after the first choice was blocked.
The Question Africa Should Be Asking
The immediate question is who will succeed Secretary-General António Guterres, whose term ends on December 31, 2026. But the implications for Africa go beyond who becomes the next UN chief.
A successful African campaign would give the continent an opportunity to shape the UN’s agenda from the organisation’s highest administrative and diplomatic office. A fragmented campaign does the opposite: it reinforces the perception that Africa’s numerical weight within the UN does not automatically translate into collective political influence.
Gambari’s conclusion from this round is not that Africa should rally behind one of its candidates. Quite the opposite: “In my view, Africa should have stood by the rotation principle in the process of selecting the successor of Secretary-General Guterres.” In other words, the continent should have entered the race behind a principle, rather than behind a candidate.
His reasoning is pragmatic. “The principle has favoured Africa in the recent past,” Gambari says, “and, if maintained, may again produce the Secretary- General of either gender next but one time around.” This is not about this race, or even the next one; it is a longer-term calculation. Africa’s decision to put forward two candidates in the current race risks weakening that calculation.
For African governments, therefore, the real question is not whether one of their candidates can win, but whether the continent can rebuild the political coordination, consensus and long-term strategy needed to compete effectively for the UN’s top post and secure a lasting voice in the institution’s most powerful decision-making bodies. Africa has already shown twice that it can do so. The question now is whether it can organise itself to do it again.
Why Africa Still Has No Seat at the Table
Africa accounts for more than a quarter of the UN membership, yet it does not have a permanent seat on the Security Council. Gambari describes the current composition in three terms: “anachronistic, unjust and out of tune with the global power reality of our time.”
The figures underpin that assessment: “The present arrangement was put in place in 1945 when Africa had only three or four members in the United Nations,” Gambari says. “It now has 54 members and not a single permanent member on the Security Council.” He draws the comparison himself: Europe, including Russia, has three permanent members.
The contradiction does not end there. According to Gambari, “for about the last three decades, the agenda of the Security Council has been dominated by the consideration of violent conflicts and wars in Africa.” In other words, while the continent has been the most heavily represented region on the Council’s agenda, it remains excluded from the Council’s permanent decision-making structure. Gambari directly links the consequence to the Council itself: “The denial of permanent seats for Africa undermines both the legitimacy, credibility and authority of the Security Council, and this must be addressed.”
Reforming this structure has long been one of Africa’s demands, and there has been some progress on paper in recent years. The Pact for the Future, unanimously adopted by the General Assembly on September 22, 2024, includes a commitment to addressing the historical injustice against Africa as a priority, while also providing for improved representation for Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Gambari reads this as giving Africa priority consideration for permanent seats in both categories of membership in a reformed and expanded Council. He is doubtful, however, that it will translate into movement. “Personally, I very much doubt whether the needle of political will, especially on the part of the current unelected veto-wielding permanent members of the Council, would move much further any time soon.”
The secretary-general race is therefore not merely a contest for Africa. It is the latest manifestation of a much longer struggle over representation and influence.
What Comes Next
The Security Council will hold several more rounds of voting before December 2026, and the outcome remains uncertain. But whatever happens in this race, Gambari’s warning points to a broader lesson for Africa.
The continent’s successful campaigns in 1992 and 1996 were built on early coordination, a clear strategy, multiple candidates and the ability to adjust when the first choice failed. Rebuilding that kind of political coordination may matter more than any individual candidacy.
The next UN secretary-general will be chosen through a process that is still unfolding. For Africa, however, the bigger question is already clear: can its 54 UN members turn their collective weight into collective influence?
