Ibrahim Agboola
Gambari has always kept dates with history. In 1965, he had been spotted by
some British teachers at King’s College, Lagos, where he did his A Levels. They
decided to enrol him for his university education in the UK. His elder brother,
Zulu Gambari, the highly influential emir of Ilorin from 1959 to 1991, had
other ideas. He insisted his younger brother should attend the University of
Ibadan (UI).
Off to UI the young
Ibrahim went — but he spent exactly two weeks there, according to family
members who spoke with TheCable. His
British mentors soon found out his whereabouts and took him straight to the
London School of Economics and Political Science, one of the most prestigious
institutions in the UK. In 1968, Gambari graduated with a degree in economics
and international relations from LSE. He bagged a master’s degree in 1970 and
PhD in 1974 from the Columbia University, New York, United States.
In 1984, another
date was waiting in his diary. At 39, Gambari was appointed minister of
external affairs by Muhammadu Buhari, a major general and military head of
state. They worked together for 18 months, and Gambari had the arduous task of
managing the fall-out of the botched crating and kidnapping of Umaru Dikko, the
minister of transport in the overthrown civilian government of Shehu Shagari.
There was a massive diplomatic row between Nigeria and the UK over the attempt
to kidnap Dikko in London, with an Israeli security agent accused of working
for the Nigerian government.
Buhari’s government
was overthrown in 1985 and Gambari moved, but another date was waiting three
decades later. After decades of journeying through the globe as a scholar and
diplomat, Gambari has now been appointed by Buhari as chief of staff to replace
Abba Kyari, who died from COVID-19 complications in April. As John Webster, the
English dramatist quipped, “old friends, like old swords, still are trusted
best”.
Born on November 24,
1944 into an aristocratic family in Ilorin, Kwara state, Gambari began life as
a prince of the old emirate. He attended Provincial (now Government) Secondary
School, Ilorin, before proceeding to King’s College.
TEACHER BY TRAINING
If Gambari’s career
trajectory could be described in two ways, he is first a teacher and then a
diplomat. Yet, he is popularly known as Ambassador Gambari. He is the founder
and chairman of Savannah Center External link, an Abuja-based think-tank for
research, training and public policy debate on the nexus between diplomacy
(conflict resolution), democracy and development in Africa. He was appointed
the first chancellor of Kwara State University (KWASU) in 2013.
Gambari started his
teaching career as a lecturer at Queen’s College, City University of New York
in 1969 and later became an assistant professor at the State University of New
York from 1974 to 1977. He returned to Nigeria to work as a senior lecturer at
the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, in 1977, where he rose to become a
professor in 1983. He was a visiting professor at the School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University
and Howard University in Washington DC from 1986 to 1989. Gambari was also a
research fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, as well as a
resident scholar with the Rockefeller Foundation Centre in Bellagio, Italy.
In an interview with African Newspage,
Gambari said he is more of a teacher than a diplomat.
“As I always say, I
regard myself as a teacher by training and diplomat by accident, long accident,
but nonetheless accident! In many ways, I have been privileged and with
privilege comes a lot of responsibility,” he said.
DIPLOMAT BY
ACCIDENT
In 1999, Gambari
became the first under-secretary-general and special adviser to the
secretary-general on Africa and served till 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).
At the same time, he acted as the resident special representative of the secretary-general
and head of the United Nations mission to Angola. He was a delegate to the
assembly of the African Union as a national delegate from 1984 to 1985 and
member of the UN secretary-general’s delegation from 2000 to 2012.
From 2010 to 2012,
Ban Ki-moon, UN’s secretary-general, appointed Gambari as the joint special
representative of the United Nations-African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur
(UNAMID), usually referred to as the world’s largest international peacekeeping
mission. In 1990, he was appointed as chairman of the UN’s special committee
against apartheid for four years to coordinate eradication of apartheid in
southern Africa. Gambari also served as Nigeria’s ambassador and permanent
representative to the UN from 1990 to 1999.
“I was a minister at
the age of 39, a civilian in a military government. I have worked with 7
Nigerian heads of state; there is hardly any Nigerian who is not a (career)
civil servant who has worked with 7 heads of state! Shagari appointed me at the
Institute of International Affairs; Buhari appointed me as a minister,” Gambari
told African Newspage.
“Babangida appointed
me as ambassador to the UN where I ended up working with Shonekan, Abacha and
Abdulsalam Abubakar. At the UN, I worked with 4 secretaries-general: Javier
Pérez de Cuellar, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon. I
submitted my papers to Pérez de Cuellar in 1989.”
UN ‘FAVOURITE
ENVOY’ WHO HUGGED DICTATORS
There are not many men who have proudly worked with
dictators repeatedly and have been lauded and criticised for doing the same.
Gambari is one of such men, who has worked with virtually every dictator in
Nigeria, and rode on this record to persuade dictators around the world.
In 2010, Foreign Policy referred to him as
“the United Nations sent its favorite dictator-whisperer”. He had sought peace
with Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, pursued the release of Aung San Suu Kyi in
Myanmar, and taken on many of such arduous tasks for the UN.
In a bid to mediate for democracy in Sudan, Gambari attended
the wedding of Musa Hilal, a tribal leader, to Cameroon’s strongman Idris Deby,
in the company of the Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir. At this wedding,
he is seen dinning and hugging dictators, which would later become a talking
point for diplomats and researchers across the world.
Some say his friendship with dictators did not achieve the
needed results, while others differ, claiming that the situation could have
been worse.
MAN OF MANY
HONOURS
With Gambari’s
extensive and colourful achievement as a diplomat around the world comes with a
myriad of accolades. He is a recipient of Nigeria’s third-highest national
honour, Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFR). In October 2012,
former President Jacob Zuma conferred on Gambari South Africa’s highest
national honour for non-citizens, the Order of the Companion of the Oliver R.
Tambo (OCORT).
In 2007, he received
the special recognition for international development and diplomacy award
conferred by the Africa-America Institute. A year after, he was awarded the
distinguished foreign service award by the federal government in 2008. Gambari
also clinched the International House Harry Edmonds Award for Lifetime
Achievement in New York in 2009 and the Campaign Against Genocide Medal by the
Republic of Rwanda in 2010.
In 2002, he was
awarded a doctor of humane letters (honoris causa) from the University of Bridgeport,
Connecticut, and another from Farleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey in
2006. The ambassador extraordinaire was elected to the Johns Hopkins University
Society of Scholars in 2002 and has since 2005 served as a member of the
International Advisory Board of the Institute of Peace, Leadership and
Governance at Africa University, Zimbabwe.
PROMOTING
DEMOCRACY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE
As a research
scholar with a plethora of published books, journals and articles on politics
and international relations, Gambari has detailed the challenges with
governance in Africa and global unrest. In his address to the civil society
leaders’ stakeholders conference in Abuja in April 2018, Gambari emphasised on
peace, democracy and accountability.
“Meanwhile, the
growth of public corruption has continued in spite of the promises made by the
Buhari administration to contain it. Indeed, corruption has become so embedded
and systemic that it has become difficult for public institutions to execute
their mandate as self-interest of officials overtakes the public good,” he
said.
“We must keep our
eyes on the ball, as the problem is not democracy but religious and communal
violence, widespread corruption, and an excessive presidentialism amidst
enduring poverty, unsustainable levels of unemployment among the youth, growing
inequality.”
Given his wealth of
experience, Nigerians are looking forward to his wielding such influence as the
president’s gatekeeper in promoting good governance.
He is married and has children and grandchildren.
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