AS we patiently waited with others for the elevator to arrive on the ground floor of the Nigerian Mission to the United Nations in New York this September morning (only one of the elevators was working!), a few people who recognized him seemed to gasp as they realized that such an eminent global citizen and former head of the Mission was standing there unassumingly. That was Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, global diplomat, statesman, retired professor of International Relations, ex-Under Secretary-General (Political) of the United Nations, ex-External Affairs Minister, ex-Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, immediate past Chief of Staff to the President, Ilorin prince, gentleman extraordinaire, and one of the humblest (global) eminent persons you will ever encounter.
We were at the Nigerian Mission House on Kudirat Abiola Corner, Second Avenue, New York, last September in the week preceding the United Nations General Assembly to inquire about linking up with two visiting African heads of state. More precisely, Professor Gambari was with me at the Nigerian Mission to help facilitate an invitation for the two African leaders to visit my university. Since he left the Mission in late 1999, he had avoided, as much as possible, causing a “distraction” by visiting the imposing Mission house. But he did so that day for my sake. That’s the measure of the man. He would often go to any length to help anyone who needed his help. And he would do so as elegantly, smoothly, or inconspicuously as the occasion demanded. Indeed, Gambari’s modesty is legendary.
Though the underlying aim of this tribute is to ask that the tireless, newly minted, peripatetic octogenarian, who celebrated his 80th on November 24, be put to further service, I would like to place my personal experience of the life and times of this immensely thoughtful man in some brief context to not only re-emphasize his global eminence but also to underscore his good-nature and generosity of spirit. Indeed, much more can be added to what others who have paid tribute to him in time have said. Yet, there is no need to repeat what they eloquently attested to in a late tribute as this. Still, it is necessary to contextualize the present request that comes in the guise of a tribute.
Gambari’s accomplishments have already been exhibited, acknowledged, celebrated, and cataloged by the United Nations, African Union, and ECOWAS, and in Nigeria, South Africa, Myanmar, Sudan, etc. And he continues to be honoured for his contributions to global peace and security. Indeed, Gambari brought a quiet flourish to the meticulous and often hidden art of diplomacy and international relations. As he worked in the halls of the United Nations and presidential palaces around the world, negotiating complicated or convoluted deals either with probable or improbable leaders, some of them wily and cruelly recalcitrant (like General Sani Abacha, the Myanmar Generals, and the ex-Sudanese dictator, Omar al-Bashir), some graceful or gracefully detached, and some others haughtily imperious or dismissive (like Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice), what he brought to bear on his multivarious tasks was not only deep knowledge and diplomatic savvy, but also personal convictions and refinement. He was not only part of that golden era of Nigeria’s foreign policy when the nation, despite being under the reign of soldiers, exerted itself in the subregion, the continent, and the world at large, but he also consolidated this experience when he joined the United Nations.
Over the last three decades, I have witnessed the respect and reverence he has attracted in his personal and professional life. For instance, when President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration replaced him as the Head of Nigeria’s Mission at the United Nations in late 1999, I happened to be in New York on a fellowship at the New School for Social Research (briefly renamed New School University). Professor Gambari invited me to every one of the countless farewell cocktails or dinners held in his honour by his colleagues. Almost every head of the diplomatic mission struggled to find a date to host Gambari. From the most exclusive dinner in the beautiful penthouse home of the Lichtenstein envoy to the UN, to which only about 12 of us were invited, including the Dean of UN Ambassadors and the ambassadors of the US, Canada, and Gambari’s most graceful and even more self-effacing wife to the larger dinner hosted by African permanent representatives to the UN, and the one hosted at the Nigerian Mission and attended by the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, the testimonies to Gambari’s effectiveness as Nigeria’s ambassador to the global forum, the depth and breadth of the relationships he cultivated, and his immense contributions to global peace and security were not only heartwarming, they made one proud to share his national identity.
However, I must confess that such was the high number of invitations to dinners and cocktails that Gambari received and to which he invited me along that I was afraid that my academic fellowship in New York ran the risk of turning into an excuse for gastronomical excursions – and excess. And that I might, at the end of the dinners, find it difficult to return to my more proletarian tastes. I must confess that I found some excuses to miss a few, excuses which Gambari, in the best of the traditions of his life of diplomacy, acknowledged warmly.
But what is remarkable about the Ilorin prince is that he is as comfortable in the hallowed halls of the UN and among global leaders as he is in the remotest parts of the world and among everyday folks. Even those young enough to be his sons, Gambari calls us “brothers” and not just “friends.” And he shares with us some of his intriguing experiences around the world, the sweetest of which he sometimes tells in his inimitable Ilorin-Yoruba accent.
Such was the nature of his accomplishments that about 30 years ago, my friend, Laolu Akande, arguably Nigeria’s most effective education reporter and later editor and vice presidential spokesman, during our years as reporters, embarked on a project of writing Gambari’s biography. Recently, Laolu and I reflected that the man was “only” 50 when we were already persuaded that he deserved a biography. Since then, we have got to know the man even more. I recall an occasion around 1995 when he and his now late former student-turned-friend, Mr. Wale Adeeyo, stopped over to see Laolu and I at the Tribune house in Imalefalafia, Ibadan.
The two were on a trip somewhere outside Ibadan when we called to request a brief chat regarding our book project. When they arrived at the Tribune house, we couldn’t find a suitable space in Tribune to host him and his friend. He then asked that we get into the car to find a suitable space. A few minutes later, as we drove toward the back entrance of Liberty Stadium, Adeeyo, who loathed wasting others or his own time, suggested that they shouldn’t drive us too far away from our office and that they stopped to find a place to chat briefly. Adeeyo, who knew the modesty of his former teacher too well, requested from a woman selling some odds and ends by the roadside if we could sit on her spare bench for a while. She obliged. Gambari sat there with us for a short interview.
When we were done, Adeeyo gave the woman a generous gift. The woman could not have imagined that the man sharing her bench was Nigeria’s permanent representative at the United Nations. By the way, do not ask me what happened to the book we were writing. As anyone who has worked in this line of business would attest, some of the most critical writing projects run the risk of regretful abandonment.
This brings me to the primary purpose of this tribute: the modest proposal. Given Gambari’s experience, unceasing readiness to serve his country, and the current state of Nigeria’s international reputation and diplomatic influence, President Bola Tinubu’s administration would be well-served to leverage this.
For instance, the President can set up an Eminent Persons Foreign Policy Advisory Board comprising the three most distinguished Nigerian diplomats alive today: Professor Ibrahim Gambari, former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and former Minister of External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi. These three can suggest the most transformative steps that can be taken to transform Nigeria’s international influence. Even without the attendant blessings of excess crude dollars of the past that helped in leveraging Nigeria’s regional, continental, and global influence, the President can restore the glorious years of Nigeria’s foreign policy if he listened to the counsel of these three great men.
Meanwhile, in whatever part of the world this felicitation finds Gambari, here’s a belated happy 80th birthday!
– Adebanwi is Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies and Director of Center for Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA.