Ibrahim Gambari, the iconic scholar-diplomat, at 80, By Kingsley Moghalu

On the UN as Nigeria’s Ambassador, Gambari was influential and well liked by his colleagues. He recorded stable achievements as Chairman of the UN Particular Committee Towards Apartheid. He stood up for the victims of the Rwandan genocide, which occurred whereas Nigeria was a rotating member of the Safety Council, arguing forcefully together with Czech Republic Ambassador Corel Kovanda and Australian Ambassador Colin Keating that the ethnic bloodbath of the Tutsi in Rwanda was genocide and needs to be referred to as by its title.

If Nigeria, our nation, have been to have been a spot the place concepts rule – as they do in developed international locations and lots of rising markets – males like Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari (CFR) could be kings and never solely princes, as he occurs to be by bloodline. Nonetheless, Nigeria needs to be grateful to Gambari, as he turns 80, for his proud, dedicated and impactful service to our nation and the world, quite than dwelling on a way of entitlement as a member of the standard ruling household of the emirate of Ilorin in North-Central Nigeria.

Educated at King’s Faculty, Lagos, the celebrated London Faculty of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the place he studied Economics for his first diploma, and the Ivy League Columbia College within the Metropolis of New York, the place he obtained grasp’s and doctorate levels in Political Science, Gambari labored exhausting from early in his life. The result’s an inspirational degree of worldwide renown and affect within the space of international coverage, worldwide relations, and diplomacy. His storied profession has been marked by historic roles on the centre of a number of world occasions and traits. On high of this, he mixed, within the vogue of the late world statesman, Henry Kissinger, being a significant driver of theories and ideas of international coverage which have had endurance, with being a real-world deal-maker on the highest ranges of world politics.

Ibrahim Gambari is among the few influential Nigerian students of international coverage who recognise, and connect applicable significance to, the basic connection between home circumstances and international affairs. This has been the topic of at the very least two of a number of books he has authored. Why is that this contribution by Gambari vital? As a result of it’s, in sum, the story of the rise and fall of Nigeria’s affect in world affairs within the nation’s varied epochs. We performed an outsized position, with commensurate affect, in attaining success within the world battle to finish Apartheid in South Africa. Ditto within the outcomes of the independence struggles of Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, in addition to the creation of the Financial Group of West African States (ECOWAS).

However, buffeted by financial and safety decline in latest a long time, its polity extra fractious and polarised, unable to grapple with the problem of nationhood in an inclusive, clear method, weak governance in Nigeria has translated into more and more weaker international coverage and energy projection in a altering world. At the moment, the hundreds of worldwide completed particular person Nigerians within the Diaspora have change into arguably extra revered and famend than the Nigerian state itself that’s their fatherland. Why Nigerians thrive overseas greater than at house is a topic for one more day. However Gambari was forward of his time in making the connection between house and overseas in world politics.

…the termination of Nigeria’s democratic transition in 1993, and the human rights violations by the regime of Normal Sani Abacha, progressively strained Gambari’s tenure as Nigeria’s envoy, as Western powers opposed the Abacha regime and the federal government Gambari represented turned a pariah state. The execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa was a low ebb for him and for Nigeria within the so-called “worldwide neighborhood”. All that sustained the super-diplomat was the non-public goodwill he loved amongst his colleagues, which flowed from his affable persona. 

Paradoxically maybe, this scholar-diplomat’s “survival” for an unprecedented 9 years as Nigeria’s Everlasting Consultant to the United Nations, from 1990 to 1999, and even his rise to nationwide prominence within the first place – first as Director-Normal of the Nigerian Institute for Worldwide Affairs in late 1983, throughout the presidency of Shehu Shagari, and barely three months later, his appointment as International Minister of Nigeria within the Muhammadu Buhari-led navy regime that overthrew Shagari – seemingly had one thing to do along with his home “political base” of princehood in an emirate of northern Nigeria. This isn’t to say that Gambari was not certified for his eminent roles. Removed from it, he was extra so than most, and with sterling credentials into the cut price. This, then, is probably merely yet one more validation of his postulations in regards to the home roots of international coverage!

I first met Ibrahim Gambari on the streets of Manhattan in New York Metropolis in 1994. I used to be a 30-year previous Political Affairs Officer within the UN Secretariat’s Headquarters. He was Nigeria’s Ambassador to the world physique. I walked as much as him and launched myself: “Good morning, Ambassador. I’m Kingsley Moghalu, and I’m within the DPKO (Division of Peacekeeping Operations)”, I stated, as we shook arms. “Oh, it’s you!’ he beamed. I’ve heard lots about you and your work out of your bosses, Kofi Annan, Iqbal Riza and others”, he stated. “Come over and see me on the (Nigerian) Mission one among nowadays and let’s have lunch.” Over a subsequent lunch at a tony Chinese language restaurant between East forty fifth Road and First Avenue, we developed a heat connection and have become good pals. Gambari has remained, ever since, a senior buddy who would at all times converse up for me (typically unsolicited) each time he felt an applicable alternative for me introduced itself.

His exceptional profession in world diplomacy has had many successes. It additionally has a number of wrinkles. Throughout his stint as International Minister within the Buhari navy regime, from January 1984 to August 1985, he articulated cardinal rules of Nigerian international coverage, encapsulated in his “Concentric Circles of International Coverage” idea, which prioritised, first, our neighbours in West Africa, then the African continent, after which the world at giant. However the regime he served additionally launched a botched try and kidnap Umaru Dikko, an influential minister within the Shagari authorities and the previous elected president’s consigliere, on the streets of London, the UK capital. The crate into which Dikko was bundled, drugged and unconscious, and was to have been flown out of Stansted Airport as “diplomatic cargo” to Nigeria, however for eagle-eyed British customs inspectors, was addressed to a sure International Minister named Ibrahim Gambari!!

On the UN as Nigeria’s Ambassador, Gambari was influential and well liked by his colleagues. He recorded stable achievements as Chairman of the UN Particular Committee Towards Apartheid. He stood up for the victims of the Rwandan genocide, which occurred whereas Nigeria was a rotating member of the Safety Council, arguing forcefully together with Czech Republic Ambassador Corel Kovanda and Australian Ambassador Colin Keating that the ethnic bloodbath of the Tutsi in Rwanda was genocide and needs to be referred to as by its title. This was at a time when america had blocked a forceful UN navy intervention to cease the genocide and didn’t wish to get entangled, after its personal disastrous peacekeeping outing in Somalia a 12 months prior in 1993, when US troopers have been killed in humiliating circumstances by forces loyal to the warlord, Mohammed Farah Aideed. Apparently, the genocidal Rwandan authorities was on the similar time additionally serving in a rotating seat on the Safety Council, with its Ambassador denying with a straight face that genocide was happening! As a Desk Officer for Somalia, Rwanda, and Angola within the UN Secretariat Headquarters, I typically noticed and reported on conferences of the Safety Council for my superiors, and often encountered Gambari within the Council Chamber.

Ibrahim Gambari’s influence in world politics is evidenced by, amongst others, recognitions such because the conferment on him by President Jacob Zuma of the Order of the Companions of Oliver Tambo, the best honour South Africa can confer on a non-citizen, and the Marketing campaign Towards Genocide Medal, conferred on him by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. Gambari has additionally served Nigeria in vital positions at house. He was a member of the Nationwide Convention convened by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014, and he’s the Professional-Chancellor of Kwara State College.

However the termination of Nigeria’s democratic transition in 1993, and the human rights violations by the regime of Normal Sani Abacha, progressively strained Gambari’s tenure as Nigeria’s envoy, as Western powers opposed the Abacha regime and the federal government Gambari represented turned a pariah state. The execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa was a low ebb for him and for Nigeria within the so-called “worldwide neighborhood”. All that sustained the super-diplomat was the non-public goodwill he loved amongst his colleagues, which flowed from his affable persona. The state of affairs invoked a well-liked definition of an envoy as “a great man despatched overseas to lie for his nation”. Nonetheless, Gambari maintained a really cordial private relationship with america Ambassador to the UN on the time, and later Secretary of State, the previous professor and international coverage scholar at Georgetown College, Madeleine Albright – a relationship that started at Columbia College the place they have been each doctoral college students within the early seventies. She and he have been additionally to play a key position in mobilising assist for the election of Ghana’s Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-Normal in 1996, after Washington vetoed the re-election candidacy of Egypt’s Boutros Boutros Ghali for a second time period in workplace.

In between the overthrow of the Buhari regime by Normal Ibrahim Babangida’s palace coup in 1985, and his return to diplomacy as UN Ambassador in 1990, Gambari retreated to his past love – academia. In self-exile, he taught for a number of years as a Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins College’s Faculty of Superior Worldwide Research (SAIS), Georgetown College’s Faculty of International Service, and at Howard College, all in Washington DC. A lot of his college students, colleagues and mentees have been to later change into outstanding US ambassadors and influential international coverage actors. Submit-1999, after Olusegun Obasanjo was elected president and appointed the distinguished company guru and chartered accountant, Arthur Mbanefo, as Nigeria’s UN Ambassador, Gambari crossed over to the UN Secretariat, appointed as Beneath-Secretary-Normal by UN Secretary-Normal Kofi Annan. He was later to function Beneath-Secretary-Normal for Political Affairs, a uncommon distinction for an African, and he mediated quite a few crises in Angola, Cyprus, and Myanmar, amongst others.

Ibrahim Gambari’s influence in world politics is evidenced by, amongst others, recognitions such because the conferment on him by President Jacob Zuma of the Order of the Companions of Oliver Tambo, the best honour South Africa can confer on a non-citizen, and the Marketing campaign Towards Genocide Medal, conferred on him by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. Gambari has additionally served Nigeria in vital positions at house. He was a member of the Nationwide Convention convened by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014, and he’s the Professional-Chancellor of Kwara State College. He was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari as Chief of Employees to the President in 2019, in Buhari’s second time period in workplace. That way more folks bear in mind Gambari’s contributions in his external-facing roles than this key one at house is probably a sign of the broader assessments of the influence of successive governments in Nigeria by residents and foreigners alike. It’s becoming that Gambari has “retired” to full-time work main his influential suppose tank, the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Improvement in Abuja.

Eighty cheers to an excellent scholar-statesman.

Kingsley Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the Central Financial institution of Nigeria, is the president of the African Faculty of Governance, a pan-African graduate-school college of public coverage headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda.