Buhari Appoints Prof Agboola Ibrahim Gambari as New Chief of Staff

• Buhari Appoints Prof Agboola Ibrahim Gambari as New Chief of Staff

Following the death of the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari to COVID-19, the president on Tuesday appointed professor Agboola Ibrahim Gambari as the new Chief of Staff.

Professor Gambari is a Nigerian scholar, diplomat and an indigene of Kwara State.

The new Chief of Staff is the founder and chairman of Savannah Center External link, a think-tank for research, training and public policy debate on the nexus between diplomacy (conflict resolution), democracy and development in Africa.

According to Gambari’s Wikipedia page, he served as Nigeria’s Minister for External Affairs between 1981 and 1985. The professor was later appointed by Ban Ki-moon, the then secretary-general of United Nations and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission as Joint African Union-United Nations Special Representative for Darfur in 2010.

Gambari is currently the Special Adviser on the International Compact with Iraq and Other Issues for the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This was after he served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (USG) for the Department of Political Affairs (DPA).

Late Abba Kyari, the former Chief of Staff, died after contracting coronavirus during an official trip to Germany and the United Kingdom in early March.