Federal Government is still maintaining its earlier decision to stay with the International Criminal Court (ICC), since it is the responsibility of member nations to take their stand.
Dr Clement Aduku, the spokesman, Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made this known on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said that AU member countries did not vote to withdraw from the ICC, saying that it depends on the national interest of individual country.
Aduku said, “Nigeria’s stand on the issue, as earlier explained by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, had not changed.’’
NAN reports that African Union had in January, during plenary at its 28th Summit in Addis Ababa, called for collective withdrawal of members from the Court.
The summit had argued that African countries were not fairly treated by the court, hence members should withdraw.
Onyeama had explained that there was a strategy adopted by AU for collective withdrawal from the ICC to which Nigeria did not subscribe.
The minister said that when the issue came up during a meeting, several countries kicked against it.
According to him, Nigeria and others believe that the court has an important role to play in holding leaders accountable, hence, Nigeria fully stands by it.
“Nigeria is not the only voice agitating against it.
“In fact, Senegal is speaking very strongly against it. Cape Verde and other countries are also against it.
“What they (AU) did was to set up a committee to elaborate a strategy for collective withdrawal.
“After, Senegal took the floor, Nigeria took the floor, Cape Verde and some other countries made it clear that they were not going to subscribe to that decision,” he said.
Onyeama said that a number of countries also took the floor to request for more time to study it before acceding.
He said that Zambia, Tanzania, Liberia, Botswana and a host of others were not willing to withdraw from the court.
Onyeama said that individual country willingly acceded to the 1998 Rome Statue on the setting up of the court.
“Each country freely and willingly acceded to the Treaty and not all of the members of the AU acceded; each country acceded individually, exercising its own sovereign right.
“So, if a country wants to withdraw, it has the right to do that individually.
“AU, which was not a party to the Rome Statute that established the court, should not be developing a strategy for a collective withdrawal for something that each country entered into individually.
“Those who feel they want to withdraw should do that individually,” Onyeama said.
NAN reports that three African states in 2016 had publicly declared their intention to withdraw from the court.
They are Burundi, South Africa and Gambia, while reports indicated that Namibia, Kenya and Uganda were contemplating withdrawing from ICC.
The court has been repeatedly criticised by African states as an inefficient, neo-colonial institution of the Western powers to try African countries.
This argument was supported by the fact that nine of the 10 situations under investigation, with three others under preliminary investigations, involve African countries.
African state are parties to the Rome Statute make up the biggest regional membership, comprising 34 of the 124 members.
From 2009, some African countries have called for collective withdrawal from the ICC. (NAN)