The Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Prof Ibrahim Gambari as his new chief of staff.
Below is the new chief of staff’s profile:
Prof Ibrahim Gambari: 5th HOD ABU, Dept of Pols Sc & Int’l Studies (1982-1984)
Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, CFR,
OCORT, a scholar-diplomat is the Founder/Chairman of the Board of
Directors of Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, a
non-governmental think-tank on research and policy studies on conflict
prevention and resolution as well as democratization and development in
Africa.
SCDDD seeks to promote the evolution of
Africa into a prosperous, politically stable and globally respected
continent which is motivated by the culture of good governance.
Prof Ibrahim Gambari
has had an illustrious career, spanning academia, government and
international diplomacy, culminating with his appointment as the first
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the
Secretary-General on Africa (1999-2005).
In that capacity, he worked closely with
heads of government, key policymakers as well as institutions in the
continent to develop the New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD).
During this period, he was concurrently
the Resident Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of
the United Nations Mission to Angola (2002-2003). He has been a
delegate to the Assembly of the OAU/African Union as a national delegate
(1984-1985) and as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s delegation
(2000-2012).
Prof Ibrahim Gambari
was the Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee Against
Apartheid (1990-1994) during which he worked closely with African
governments to coordinate UN policy to eradicate apartheid, thereby
building trust and confidence with governments and policymakers in
member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Ambassador Gambari was
Under-Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Department of
Political Affairs (2005-2007). In that period, he also operated as UN
Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Cyprus, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
On 22 May 2007, the Secretary-General entrusted Prof Ibrahim Gambari
with the Good Offices Mandate on Myanmar. He was also appointed in 2007
by the Secretary-General as Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser
on Iraq Compact and Other Issues, positions he held until 2009.
He served his country, Nigeria, as
Director-General at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs;
Minister of External Affairs (1984-1985) and subsequently
Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations
(1990-1999).
He also served as a delegate at the 2014
National Conference on the restructuring and promotion of national unity
in Nigeria. At international level, Prof Ibrahim Gambari
held numerous United Nations positions, including Chairman of the UN
Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations and the UNSG’s Special
Adviser on Africa.
Professor Gambari also served as Joint
AU/UN Special Representative in Darfur and Head of UNAMID, which was
then the largest international peacekeeping operation in the world and
the first hybrid Mission. He had in different capacities, worked with
four successive United Nations Secretary-General (Perez de Cuella,
Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon).
He currently co-chairs the Commission on
Global Security, Justice and Governance at the Hague Institute for
Global Justice and the Stimson Centre at Washington D.C.
In January, 2017, he was appointed a
member and is currently Deputy Chairperson of the Panel of Eminent
Persons of African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a Specialized Agency of
the African Union for the promotion of good governance at the
political, economic and corporate levels.
In the same vein, Prof Ibrahim Gambari
was appointed in 2016 by Patricia Scotland, QC, and the Commonwealth
Secretary-General as the Special Envoy to Zambia on Elections and
reappointed in 2017 as the Special Envoy for Democratic Stability and
Elections 2020.
In addition, he is a member of the Senior
Working Group (SWG) of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP).
Also in May 2017, he was honoured with the Global Leadership Award by
the University of South Florida, USA.
Education
Prof Ibrahim Gambari
was born November November 24, 1944, in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
He attended Provincial (now Government Secondary School), Ilorin before
proceeding to the Floreat Collegium Kings College, Lagos.
He subsequently attended the London
School of Economics where he obtained his B. Sc. (Economics) degree
(1968) with a specialization in International Relations. He later
obtained his M.A. (1970) and PhD (1974) degrees from Columbia
University, New York, the USA in Political Science /International
Relations.
Prof Ibrahim Gambari’s Academic career
Professor Gambari began his teaching
career in 1969 at City University of New York before working at the
University of Albany. Later, he taught at Ahmadu Bello University, in
Zaria, Kaduna State, the second-largest university in Africa serving as
the 5th Hod of the department of political science and International
Studies from 1982 to 1984.
From 1986 to 1989, he was Visiting
Professor at three universities in Washington, D.C.: Johns Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University, and
Howard University. He has also been a research fellow at the Brookings
Institution also in Washington D.C. and a Resident Scholar at the
Bellagio Study and Conference Center, the Rockefeller Foundation-run
centre in Italy.
He has received several academic and
national honours, He was decorated with the title of Commander of the
Federal Republic (CFR) by the Government of Nigeria., and the “Order of
the Companion of the Oliver R. Tambo” (OCORT) of South Africa.
He was accorded, honoris causa, the title
of Doctor of Humane Letters (D.Hum.Litt.) from the University of
Bridgeport. He is a member of the Johns Hopkins University’s Society of
Scholars.
On March 4, 2013, Ibrahim Gambari
was appointed by the Kwara State Governor, Abdul Fatah Ahmad, as the
pioneer Chancellor of the Kwara State University (KWASU), Ilorin,
Nigeria. He was also appointed and as the Pro-chancellor and Chairman of
the Board of Governing Council of Bayero University, Kano (BUK). He is
married with children and grandchildren.
