UN General Assembly
1979

90. One area in which we intend in Nigeria to subject to the acid test all professions of friendship by each and every State for Africa is in southern Africa. The rabid racism which apartheid represents to all men of conscience; the inhuman exploitation of man by man, unprecedented in the annals of man since the slave trade of the eighteenth century, which apartheid constitutes; the grotesque dehumanization of an entire people which apartheid has institutionalized; the systematic and massive violation of human rights which apartheid promotes, and the blatant and consistent destruction of life which it encourages—all these and more make apartheid a crime against humanity. That a minority racist regime in a country which has no claims to be a world Power can defy the United Nations at will has ominous implications for the survival of our Organization. How else can one judge the efficacy of the international will, if the United Nations cannot implement its decisions arrived at unanimously and in accordance with the provisions of its Charter? What recourses there for the peaceful resolution of the problems of southern Africa, when South Africa, in violation of international law, bombs refugee camps and invades the territory of neighbouring countries in naked pursuit of a policy of aggression, intimidation, and terrorism?