In the past week, numerous social media posts claim that the United Nations would intervene in a situation after such has been protested for more than 30 days. This is false; the UN needs no specific number of days to intervene in any national matter.
The claim was popular on Twitter and as it was shared by many including a a United Kingdom-based Nigerian doctor and influencer Dr Olufunmilayo Harvey. He claimed the UN cannot intervene in a country matter if protests have not exceeded 30 days.
“I just heard according to UN Constitution any protest that reaches 30days will make UN intervene in that country. The Nigeria govt knows this. Many young people don’t know it. EXCEPT the govt makes visible tangible immediate changes, #EndSARS protests MUST GO ON. Tell others,” Harvey tweeted.
The claim is false.
Although he has since deleted the tweet, the claim has been reshared and retweeted by several other people.
A simple search for “30days will make UN intervene in that country” on Twitter, several other people still have it up.
A further check shows that one Twitter handle, @Pooch4style3, has 195 retweets and 150 likes, while another @AdewaleJunior15 has 77 retweets and 61 likes on the same tweet shared by Funmilayo.
However, Harvey, admitted that the claim is false. He said he copied the post from the Twitter page of Folarin Falana also known as Falz, a leading figure in the EndSARS protest.
“I saw it on Falz page actually. It was later I realised he deleted it after and I did same too.” the doctor and influencer said.
“I will send you the actual source. It’s not Falz or me. I don’t want to post it here before it starts getting retweets again.”
The UN does not have a “constitution”, but a charter. According to UN’s Article 2, Paragraph 7 the UN does not intervene in matters of domestic jurisdiction of any country.
“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll,” the document reads.
The UN deals with matters related to the maintenance of international peace and security, through its security council.
For context, Belarusians protested for more the two months at a go this year, that country was not taken over by the UN. Moreover, there is no record to show that the United Nations took over the administration of an independent country because of 30-day protests