By Muhammad Sal
Nigeria has made it clear it will not pursue nuclear weapons, choosing instead to tackle poverty and climate challenges at home and across Africa.
Vice President Kashim Shettima announced Nigeria’s position on Monday, July 7, 2025, during a meeting with Dr. Robert Floyd, head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. Shettima said Nigeria’s main priorities are fighting poverty and dealing with the effects of climate change, not building nuclear weapons.
He stressed that nuclear conflict brings only loss, not victory. “The outcome of any nuclear conflict is never a win-win situation; it is always the opposite. We are fighting poverty; we are fighting a war against the relationship between the economy and ecology in sub-Saharan Africa. We have no business dabbling in anything that has to do with nuclear weapons,” Shettima stated.
Nigeria reaffirmed its commitment to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans nuclear weapons testing worldwide. The Vice President praised the CTBTO’s global network of over 300 monitoring stations, saying they help detect nuclear activity and natural disasters, and thanked the organisation for supporting global security.
Dr. Robert Floyd, the CTBTO Executive Secretary, commended Nigeria’s leadership in the global campaign against nuclear weapons. He highlighted the important technical work done by the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC) and the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), especially in providing data to monitor environmental hazards.
Other senior officials at the meeting included Engr. Anthony Ekedegwa, Acting Chairman of NAEC; Dr. Yau Idris, Director General of NNRA; and Ambassador Dunoma Ahmed, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The visit cemented Nigeria’s role as a key African voice against nuclear testing and showed its commitment to peace, environmental safety, and sustainable growth.
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