Joseph N. Garba (Nigeria)
Elected President of the forty-fourth session of the General Assembly
Joseph N. Garba who was elected as President of the forty-fourth session of the General Assembly, has served as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations since February 1984.
An officer in the Nigerian armed forces since being commissioned in 1962, General Garba has commanded units up to and including Division Level. From 1975 to 1978, he was a member of the Supreme Military Council, Nigeria’s highest ruling body, and the federal Executive Council, where he held the Cabinet portfolio of minister for Foreign Affairs.
As Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, General Garba led Nigerian Delegations to General Assembly sessions from 1975 to 1978. He was President of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Conference of Foreign Ministers on Economic Issues, held in Kinshasa, Zaire, i December1976; and of the World Conference for Action against Apartheid, in Lagos, Nigeria, 1977, in January 1978, he served an President of the United Nations Security Council.
In 1978, as Nigeria made the transition from military to civilian rule,General Garba was reassigned as Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy. In I980, he Attended the National Defence College in India, before going to Harvard University as a fellow at the institute of Politics of the John F. Kennedy school of Government and Center for International Affairs. He has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard.
Since 1984, when he assumed the post of Nigeria’s Permanent Representative, General Garba has been Chairman of the united Nations Special Committee against Apartheid and the Special Committee on Peace Keeping Operations. He has also been Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Trust Fund for South Africa
General Garba is the author of two books, Revolution in Nigeria - Another View (1981) and Diplomatic Soldiering (1987). His third book, The Role of the Military in African Development, has not yet been published.
General Garba was born in Langtang, Nigeria, on 17 July 1943. He is married, with children.
on a healthy planet