Mahama demands UN security council reform, calls for end to Gaza atrocities

At the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York, Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama issued a strong call for sweeping reforms to the global security architecture, warning that the UN risks irrelevance if it fails to reflect today’s realities.

“The UN founding charter is outdated when it comes to representation in this August assembly,” Mahama declared. 

“If sovereign equality is truly the principle, then a continent as large as Africa with its numerous UN member states would have at least one permanent seat on the Security Council.”

Mahama criticised the veto system, which he described as “an almost totalitarian guardianship” by the five permanent members. He urged that veto powers must be limited and subject to challenge by the General Assembly. “No single nation should be able to exercise an absolute veto to serve its own interests in a dispute,” he said.

Turning to current conflicts, Mahama condemned the ongoing war in Gaza, denouncing what he called the “collective punishment and forced starvation” of Palestinians. 

“The crimes in Gaza must stop,” he repeated twice for emphasis. He rejected suggestions that a two-state solution rewards Hamas, insisting instead that it would end the suffering of “hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children.”

He also highlighted the crisis in Sudan, which he said had produced “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis” with 12 million displaced. 

He contrasted the global response to Ukrainian refugees with the limited support extended to Africans, calling out what he termed the “dog whistles” of Western migration politics.

Mahama warned that disinformation, rising nationalism, and economic instability were fuelling conditions reminiscent of the League of Nations’ collapse. “These are dangerous times,” he cautioned, stressing the need for renewed multilateralism.

Quoting Nelson Mandela’s 1995 appeal for reform, Mahama asked, “If not now, then when?”