UN General Assembly
2011

us, and the Government that I head is well on course to implement our programmes of transformation — a strategic plan for the delivery of the dividends of democracy to citizens and for preparing our country for the challenges of the future. Indeed, all across my country, there is a renewed sense of optimism and self- belief in our ability to recreate a new Nigeria on the principles of personal freedoms, democracy, good governance and the rule of law. Permit me to identify with the theme of this year’s debate of engaging the role of mediation in the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the world. The Assembly will recall that Nigeria was in the forefront of the campaign to promote this theme when, as the President of the Security Council in July 2010, my country adopted the use of preventive diplomacy to resolve armed conflicts across the world. This theme is apt and could not have come at a better time, when armed conflicts are increasingly taking a greater part of the time and resources of the United Nations.