Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari
Under-Secretary-General/Special Adviser on Africa
Prior to joining the United Nations Secretariat in December 1999, Professor Ibrahim Gambari holds the record of being the longest serving Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations (January 1990 to October 1999). He was born in Ilorin, Nigeria, on November 24, 1944, and attended Kings College, Lagos, as well as the London School of Economics where he obtained a B.Sc. (Economics) degree in Political Science with a speciality in International Relations. Professor Gambari received his M.A. in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1974, both in Political Science/International Relations from New York's Columbia University.
From 1969-74 Professor Gambari taught at the City University of New York and later at the State University of New York (Albany). He returned home to Nigeria to teach at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, the first as Senior Lecturer (1977-80), then as Reader, and subsequently as Professor (1983). He was also Chairman (Head) of the Department of Political Science at the University in Zaria (1982-1983), where he founded the first undergraduate Programme in International Studies in Nigeria.
Professor Gambari was appointed Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in October 1983, a position he held until his appointment as the Minister of External Affairs of Nigeria following the December 1983 military change of government. As Foreign Minister, he made an official visit to China where he became the first African to be conferred with the title of Honorary Professor of Chugsan University (founded by and named after Dr. Sun Yat Sen, leader of the 1911 Peasant Revolution and first President of Nationalist China). At the end of his tenure in August 1985, he returned to Ahmadu Bello University to continue teaching. Between 1986-1989, he served as Visiting Professor at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Baltimore, Maryland, and also taught at both Georgetown University and Howard University in Washington, D.C. Professor Gambari was also a Research Fellow at Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. in the latter part of 1989. Furthermore, he was a Resident Scholar at Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Centre, Italy in 1989.
During his sabbatical leave in the U.S.A., Professor Gambari authored two books, THEORY AND REALITY IN FOREIGN POLICY DECISION MAKING (N.J.: Humanities Press), and COMPARATIVE STUDY OF REGIOAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION: THE CASE OF ECOWAS (N.J.: Humanities Press). Prior to these, he authored THE DOMESTIC POLITICS OF NIGERIA'S FOREIGN POLICY (Nigeria: Ahmadu Bello University Press). He has published and continues to publish articles in national and international scholarly journals. While serving as Nigeria's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, Professor Gambari was also working on two forthcoming books: AFRICA'S SECURITY QUESTIONS AT THE END OF THE 20TH CENTURY INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM and THE UNITED NATIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD ORDER: AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE.
As Nigeria's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Professor Gambari has been a senior member of the Nigerian Delegation to ten consecutive sessions of the General Assembly (44th to 54th); he also served as President of the Security Council on two occasions (May 1994 and October 1995). He has chaired the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, which successfully saw the demise of that long-standing social injustice and the establishment of democratic rule in South Africa. He has led several United Nations missions, including the Special Committee against Apartheid mission to South Africa and the Security Council missions to South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda and Mozambique. Professor Gambari chaired the UN Special Committee on PeaceKeeping Operations from 1990-1999. He served as member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR) from 1993 to 1999 and also as President of the Executive Board of UNICEF (January to December, 1999).
Professor Gambari is the founder of the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, a non-governmental "think-tank" being established in Abuja, Nigeria, and devoted to critical analyses of - and solutions to - the problems of conflict prevention, management and resolution, as well as democratization and sustainable development in Africa.
Widely travelled, Professor Gambari is a scholar and a diplomat. His diplomatic and scholarly careers have been distinguished and productive.
Department of Political Affairs
January, 2000
United Nations Headquarters
New York