A Tribute to Prof Gambari at 80
By Hassan Saliu
Born on 24 November 1944 in Ilorin, Professor Ibrahim Agbola Gambari is a giant in our discipline who has spent more time in the corridors of power with significant impacts to his credit. An alumnus of Government Secondary School, Ilorin, King’s College in Lagos, London School of Economics and Political Science, London(1968), and University of Columbia, USA, for both his M.Sc (1970) and Ph.D (1974), he began his career in the United States before moving to ABU where he later established the International Relations programme, a programme that has benefited numerous persons, some of whom have been making waves in their chosen careers. He later served as Head of Department at Zaria before he was beckoned to be the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) under President Shehu Shagari in 1983. Upon the coup that produced General Muhammadu Buhari, he was promoted to be the External Affairs Minister of Nigeria until the government that appointed him was toppled in a palace coup in 1985.
Prof. Gambari, as a Prince who grew up in the palace with the likes of General Tunde Idiagbon, Alhaji Babatunde Kassum, and others, had this background shape his public life later. While at ABU, he served as the editor of the Political Science journal during which the flame of Marxism was at its peak. I once asked him how he had coped as the editor at that time. His response was that he kept his lane when the fiery late Bala Usman was locked in responsibility of scholars with our calm but sharp Prof. Sam Oyovbaire. During that time, the debate polarised the campus, as Dr. Usman and his group were not ideologically neutral in the debate. One thing led to another until Prof. Oyovbaire relocated to the University of Benin. That obviously led to a ceasefire, but the ghost of the debate still lingers on. Those were the days when Nigeria’s universities were centers of ideas. The divisions then were on substance, not mundane issues revolving around nativity, ethnicity, and religions that characterise the existence of our universities, with a telling effect on the university system.
Even students who used to be vanguards of ideological debates have since embraced bread-and-butter issues. In my view, the decay in the system needs to be addressed urgently to raise the standing of our universities, which is no longer soul-lifting.
Prof. Gambari was yet to unpack his programmes for NIIA before he was catapulted to the position of Minister. There are some perspectives on his tenure as Nigeria’s Minister of External Affairs under General Muhammadu Buhari. To some, he did not achieve anything substantial in office. To others, his era gave support to an ethnic agenda. In the free world that we live in, all opinions are welcome. However, based on the facts on the ground, there is not much strength that one can ascribe to these two perspectives. I argue contrarily that the revolutionary steps, such as according recognition to the Western Sahara, with concomitant diplomatic presence in Lagos, cannot be dismissed. As a realist-cum- linkage theorist, he was clearly in support of addressing domestic issues to give power to the pursuit of the African Centre-piece policy. His enduring legacy as a foreign minister was his promotion of the concentric circle thesis, which Prof. Bola Akinterinwa has tried to raise issues with.
Perhaps it is not out of place on this occasion to note that the lack of Nigerianness in the pursuit of the paradigm cannot hold water. Whatever Nigerianness people are talking about is embedded in the layered approach. If anything, the approach can, among others, be criticised on its assumption of rational movements from one layer to another, considering the fluidity that characterises the extant international system; it is not possible at all times to move logically from the primary level to another level, as a nation may be challenged at two levels simultaneously. In any case, no theory of foreign policy is foolproof, and that is why scholars generally talk about adaptation.
Given the confusion that characterised the Shagari foreign policy, one can credit the administration, which lasted less than two years in office, with a modicum of success in foreign relations, noting that the administration was more challenged in repairing the damage that the Second Republic had done to the nation.If Prof. Gambari were that powerful as a Minister, as being touted in some quarters, to the extent of sacking some diplomats, how come he was silent on the policies of expulsion of so-called illegal aliens and the Dikko affair? He was silent because those steps were taken above his level as Minister. In any event, Presidents and Heads of States are the effective Foreign Ministers of their countries. This necessarily draws attention to the distinction being made between being in power and being in government, which Prof. Gambari has also added his voice to.
The subject of this tribute as much as possible refrains from being controversial in all his duty posts. This trait he took to the UN after being recalled by the Nigerian State under controversial circumstances. Some analysts have bemoaned the mix of the Nigerian factor that culminated in his recall from a duty post where he was doing well, suggesting trading-off his position for another coveted position.Notwithstanding, there are some Nigerians who can hardly overlook Prof. Gambari’s contributions outside the UN system. Appointed in 1990 by the Babangida regime as the country’s envoy to the UN, he stayed on the job for nine years, serving five different Nigerian governments. He was replaced by Chief Arthur Mbanefo under President Obasanjo sometime in October, 1999. People suspect that the time he took Prof. Gambari to take up the appointment as the Permanent Representative to the UN was borne out of the need to consult widely before taking up the offer under a government that toppled the administration he was involved in.
Given the net worth of the service he had rendered at the UN as Nigeria’s Ambassador, including successfully chairing the UN Anti-apartheid Committee (1990-1994),he was appointed afterwards into some sensitive positions at the UN. One of these was the position of Chairperson of the UN Committee on peacekeeping, a development not fancied by the dominant states who felt such a sensitive position was not deserving of a third-world person.He nevertheless used his position to recreate a mission and a budget for Somalia, a world-forgotten disaster center. On Rwanda, he was a major voice that took on Boutros Boutros-Ghali for allowing the genocide to have happened. He strongly believed that if certain steps had been taken, in terms of reinforcements, the holocaust would have been averted.
Prof. Gambari was appointed as the first United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Africa 1999-2005. Through the instrumentality of the office, he was able to work closely with heads of government, key policymakers, and institutions on the continent to develop the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). He has also served as the Resident Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission to Angola between 2002 and 2003. While on that beat, he helped to bring the peace process under the Lusaka Protocol to a conclusion. He was appointed in 2007 by the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, as Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Iraq Compact. Between 2010 and 2012, he served as the Joint Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Chairperson of the African Union Commission’s UN-AU Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The mission, UNAMID, was the world’s largest international peacekeeping mission. While on that beat, there was relative calm with the situation there until the Nigerian factor caused his exit from Darfur in 2012.
While still in the service of the global body, he played the role of peacemaker in both Myanmar and Sudan, where his impacts still endure till date. He dropped tips on mediation at the inauguration of Offa-Erin-Ile Mediatory Committee in 2021 held at the Government House in Ilorin by urging members to know that in a conflict situation, the mediator can easily become part of the problem, if he is not careful.If my recollection is correct, he should be the second Nigerian to have attained the position of Under-Secretary in the UN System after Chief Simeon Adebo. His hands were also seen in the peaceful separation of Southern Sudan from Sudan. He was able to make notable impacts in the UN because of his tendency to be a consensual person. This virtue is often read negatively as being timid. However, this perspective is not correct. As much as possible, he avoids controversies, but on some occasions, he has stood his ground.
One of these was the issue of an African becoming the UN Secretary-General. Initially, there was a high hope for General Obasanjo to become the person, but complications arose on account of his military background, shifting attention to Boutros Boutros-Ghali from Egypt. The Nigerian Ambassador to the UN did his best for General Obasanjo to clinch it, but the duplicity, as well as Western conspiracy, made him come a distant third in the race. Consequently, Prof. Gambari has not hidden his disdain for the West regarding how they treat Africa and Africans.
Two, when the unfortunate scenario played out in Rwanda, he was unrelenting in castigating the Western world for their complicity in bringing about the genocide in that country. Three, I know how he feels about developments in his home state, Kwara, which runs, contrary to the general perspective out there. Four, he was very loud on the cold treatment meted out to the Nigerian delegation during the burial ceremony of Nelson Mandela. On that occasion, the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, was not properly recognised. Instead, the unofficial Nigerian delegation was accorded the proper recognition. To Prof. Gambari, Nigeria should have boycotted the ceremony in South Africa in protesting against the poor treatment. The point I am making is that he can take a hard stance if occasions call for it. He has served in many other international fora and domestic platforms that should have qualified him as a treasured value for Nigeria.His external networks are commendable and should have been tapped into if Nigeria had gotten its act together. Specifically, I mean that, together with other eminent Nigerians,they should have constituted an advisory body to the Foreign Affairs Minister in shaping up the country’s foreign policy, but our country is unique, wasting talents and skills.Every Foreign Affairs Minister craves for an empire who hardly sees eye-to-eye with their predecessors in office. Little wonder, the push of the nation in international affairs is increasingly barely noticeable.
At the domestic level, apart from serving as Foreign Affairs Minister under General Buhari’s Military regime, he has served as a member of Nigeria’s delegations to many UN and other important fora. He was a member of the Jonathan Constitutional Conference and almost became the Chair of the committee on Niger Delta until protests thwarted the appointment. He later served as Chief of Staff to President Buhari, 2020-2023.He has established the Savannah Centre that deals with issues of democracy and international affairs. As a Prince, he holds the title of Wambai in Ilorin. He was Chairman of the Governing Board of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, and the pioneer Chancellor of the State University at Malete.He is a mentor to some younger colleagues, both at ABU and UN. His contributions to the Ilorin Emirate are appreciated, such as facilitating the release of the letter of appointment of a VC of the University of Ilorin in 1997 which was being held back by some powerful forces under General Abacha, finding placements for youths and others.
In my encounters with him, I know that he is passionate about Ilorin, a town he has proudly defended on many instances. I recall an occasion in 2016 when he was chairing the Billy Dudley Memorial Lecture, and he referred to himself, jokingly though, as an innocent Ilorin boy who was being corrupted by Prof. Adele Jinadu, another elder of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA), when both of them were students at the King’s College, Lagos. Some believe that despite his love for Ilorin, his birth place, Prof. Gambari has equally been visible in another community in the state judging by the number of his friends and acquaintances he has from the town. Prof. Gambari is not ashamed of his Ilorin heritage. He carries the name of the town everywhere he goes. But the whisper I hear is that he should do more for the community.
As an academic, his books: ‘Party Politics and Foreign Policy: Nigeria under the First Republic’ published in 1980; ‘Theory and Reality in Foreign Policy Making: Nigeria After the Second Republic’, among others, are seminal books that are being treasured and valued up to the current time. The first cited book detailed the delicate political balance that propelled Nigeria’s foreign policy under the First Republic and the inherent contradictions that underbelly it. In the book, one will notice the sympathy of the author for the Republic (which is not misplaced) based on the level of exposure of the Prime Minister to external relations and somehow ‘over-exposed’ orientation of the coalition partner, NCNC, to external affairs.
Wedging these opposing tendencies together was not easy, and the overall outlook of the country’s foreign policy was dictated by that reality. The second cited book was essentially produced to recount the experiences of Prof. Gambari as a Minister in Nigeria. Its key submission is that there is a world of difference between what we teach in foreign policy class and the reality of the situation in the corridors of power. In the book, he gave commendations and knocks to the engine room (Foreign Service) of Nigeria’s foreign policy which he has described as a Zoo. It is therefore inescapable to conclude that Prof. Gambari is one scholar who has seen both the theoretical and practical aspects, at the domestic and international levels, more than any other Political Scientist of his time.
Our reveredProf. Gambari has got so many awards and honours that if one has to mention all of them, they will constitute a whole book. On this occasion, however, I can only mention a few of them. They include the following:Honourary Professor by Chugsan University, China (1985); Awardof Honourary Doctorate degree by University of Bridgeport, USA (2002); Elected into the Society of Scholars by John HopkinsUniversity(2002); Honourary award of Doctorate degree by Farleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, USA (2006); Campaign against genocide Medal by the Rwanda government (2010); South Africa awarded him the Order of Companion of OR Tambo (2012); Commander of the Federal Republic awarded by the Nigerian State; Distinguished (Foreign) Service Award by the Federal Government of Nigeria (April 2008); International House Harry Edmonds Award for Lifetime Achievement, New York (May 2009).
The birthday man today has one regret. That is his failure to become a Vice-Chancellor of a university. I assure him he has not missed much because the system he retired from was different from what we now have. Things are upside down in the system,and the sane environment he was used to at the UN is not what obtains in the Nigerian university system now. He has a consolation; he has served as the Chairman of the Governing Council ofBayero University, Kano. And currently, the Chancellor of the Crescent University, Abeokuta and Pro-Chancellor of an Abuja-based university.
As a fellow of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA), he has been contributing to the growth of the NPSA.Indeed, he supported our last conference held in Lokoja in April this year. Earlier, he hosted the Exco of our Association in Villa in 2022. On that occasion, I took a swipe at the Buhari government in its handling of security matters, and he never got annoyed, perhaps because he is a diplomat.Instead, he offset the cost of transportation of members. As the current Chief Servant of the Association, I have been mandated to appeal to him to make more presence in the Association through advice, empowerment and support.
I want to believe that Prof. Gambari must have faced some embarrassing situations when the country he has served is being derided internationally on account of many missed opportunities. As he travels all over the world, he should dig more by speaking out on what can better the lot of Nigerians. On behalf of the Exco, I congratulate Prof. Gambari, the scholar-diplomat, for attaining 80 years of age.
- Professor Hassan A. Saliu is President, Nigeria Political Science Association (NPSA) and teaches at the University of Ilorin.
