A secret note from Ban Ki-moon

He did not disappear into the toilet when he was called upon to speak, as some detractors were predicting. He was also suitably dressed for the occasion, with brilliant chains adorning his trademark jacket. President Jonathan announced there and then that Nigeria will be seeking election into the United Nations Security Council [UNSC] and that it has already received endorsement from the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] and the African Union, AU. We believe that a non-permanent seat in the UNSC will lay the ground for our subsequent claim to a permanent seat in the council that has the power to authorize international war.
We heard all of that and it gladdened our hearts. What we didn’t know was that soon after he stepped down from the podium, President Jonathan was handed an envelope containing a note allegedly signed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. I want to now disclose the contents of that note as a world exclusive. It said, “Mr. President, we are happy that Nigeria wants to join the Security Council and sit elbow to elbow with China, Russia and America. It is a good intention. We are happy that your country has contributed to the search for peace in Mali, Sudan, Somalia and Central African Republic as you enumerated. This is good. When you come into the Security Council we will like you to further contribute to the search for international peace by sending Nigerian troops to be the peace keeping force in Syria. We believe they can disarm both sides in the Syrian civil war. We would also expect your country to contribute its highly experienced troops for peace keeping efforts in Afghanistan, southern Philippines and in Cairo, to help separate soldiers from supporters of Mohamed Morsi.
“Mr. President, we know that you will gladly make these contributions since Nigeria has proved itself brave enough to send its troops where superpowers fear to send their own armies. We thank you for this bravery and fearlessness. Mr. President, as you were addressing the General Assembly, we did a quick consultation with the ambassadors of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council. We unanimously decided to support your bid. We only added some small requests that we will want you to meet before the vote is taken on your membership of the UNSC. Our requests are very few and we know they are easy for you to meet. These are the requests:
“Number one, please go and extirpate the remnants of Boko Haram from your North Eastern states. We don’t want to hear about any blocking of highways and shooting of travellers again lest some people say Nigeria is not qualified for a UNSC seat. Two, please go and chase away all the pipeline vandals in Nigeria. Some people are saying you cannot be trusted with the custody of chemical weapons stockpiles if you cannot safeguard crude oil barrels in your own country. Three, please go and uproot the Ombatse militia. Or are you afraid that Baba Alakyo will cast a spell over your 2015 election chances? Four, we want you to go and stop your security agents from sneaking up to uncompleted buildings and opening fire at hapless squatters. Once you are in the Security Council, we expect you to send a peace keeping force to surround North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor. However, we don’t want your soldiers to go shooting in there without asking questions because Kim Jong-Un could retaliate by firing a Nodong-2 rocket at Nigeria.
“Those are the small things we want you to do. As soon as you finish them, you will get unanimously elected to the UN Security Council, which we will later extend to permanent status. Thank you, Mr President.”