By Owei Lakemfa
The world was in turmoil in the mid 2000s. Nature had visited humanity with one of the most devastating storms in contemporary times. Hurricane Katrina which made a landfall in New Orleans, United States, claimed 1,392 lives and displaced a million people.
But if humans had no chance against such natural disasters, it should at least do something about man-made ones. These included renewed wars in Sri Lanka and Colombia, rising violence in Nepal, Chechnya and Iraq.
Then, there were talks in the United Nations, UN, about appointing a Special Envoy that could intervene to bring warring sides to the negotiation table in some of the most intractable conflicts in the world. It needed somebody with tact, patience, knowledge, persistence, persuasion and international reputation.
The lot fell on Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari who 20 years before, had been Nigeria’s Foreign Minister. He was the Chairperson of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid when that inhuman system collapsed. He had, on behalf of humanity, welcomed a freed Nelson Mandela to the UN.
Gambari had from 1999-2005 been Special Adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He was also one of the most recognisable faces in the world body having been Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN from 1990-1999.
He was to be the UN chief risk taker or what some jokingly called the “dictator- whisperer” as his duties included persuading those considered dictators.
One of his first major missions was to break through the Stone Age military dictatorship in Myanmar. The country had become independent on January 4, 1948, but a military coup in 1962 turned it into a dictatorship. The regime was also holding Aung Suu Kyi, one of the most famous political prisoners.
Gambari’s work was made tougher by the mass street uprisings called the Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist monks and nuns.
Gambari made a break through and in November 2007 was allowed to visit Suu Kyi in custody. The visit led to a crisis of confidence as the regime accused Gambari of having a soft spot for the opposition. To steady his course, in February 2008, he embarked on a diplomatic shuttle meeting leaders in Beijing, Jakarta, Tokyo and Singapore.
Gambari’s minimum programme in Myanmar was an inclusive national reconciliation dialogue between the regime and Suu Kyi, flow of humanitarian needs, addressing the issue of children caught in the armed conflict and release of political prisoners who in January 2008 numbered 1,850.
Part of his success was committing the regime to a constitutional referendum and elections in 2010.
Suu Kyi was freed in that 2010 after 15 years in detention. Her National League for Democracy, NLD, in 2012 won 43 of the 45 vacant seats in parliament and she became the State Counselor or Prime Minister.
I attended Suu Kyi’s lecture at the International Labour Organisation, ILO, in Geneva when she visited on June 14, 2012. She was ambivalent on issues of the military in her country and seemed to justify the on-going genocide against the Rohingya minority. Eventually, she also became dictatorial, including repressing freedom of speech. So, when her new military allies seized and returned her to detention, the world was silent.
A second theatre of war Gambari intervened was the Cyprus crises which began with its independence in 1960. The breaking point between the Greek and Turkish groups was reached in 1974 when the Greek side carried out a coup. Turkey reacted by invading the country which led to a split of the country into two different territories.
Gambari began his mission by travelling to Greece, Cyprus and Turkey to assess the situation. He made a major break through when he got the Greek Cypriot leader, Tassos Papadopoulos, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, to meet. They signed the “8 July Agreement” with a commitment to the reunification of the country. This became known internationally as “The Gambari Process”. Essentially, it is a two-tier process of establishing four technical committees to deal with day- to-day issues, and Work Groups to address substantial matters.
The Turkish Cypriot side proposed negotiations within two months and full agreement by the end of 2008.
But the Greek Cypriots rejected any time limit, insisting that the technical and group committees should first complete their work before negotiations. Then, a major complication set in: the latter decided to engage in the exploration of oil and gas in the South and South West of the country, while the Turkish Cypriot insisted that any such exploration has to be by both sides. The Gambari Process stalled and the problems persist.
Gambari also intervened in the Zimbabwean political crises from 2005-2007 by seeking to de-escalate the conflict between then President Robert Mugabe and the opposition which had Western backing. He engaged both sides, building dialogue and mediating to work out a peaceful resolution. He coordinated the international community’s involvement, including that of the Southern African Development Community, SADC, in the peace process.
A major peacekeeping mission Gambari headed was Darfur. He was the Joint Special Representative, JSR, of the UN and the African Union, AU, and Head of the UN-AU Mission in Darfur, UNAMID, from January 2010 to August 2012.
The Darfur Crises which began in February 2003 was a protest in Sudan by non-Arabs against the Arab ruling forces. The response was a very brutal war of attrition in which several hundreds of thousands were massacred and millions displaced. The Arab rulers established a brutal army of gangsters called the Janjaweed or ‘highway robbers’. That group was later renamed the Rapid Support Forces, RSF.
Gambari promoted a political settlement through negotiations and a comprehensive political process. This led to the Doha peace talks.
As head of UN Peace Mission, UNAMID, he made the protection of civilians and delivery of humanitarian aid his primary goals. The RSF is now the militia destroying Sudan.
Today, Gambari is, globally, one of the most respected diplomats. Yet, his rise as a well respected diplomat almost crash landed on take-off.
In July 1984 when he was Nigerian Foreign Minister, a former Nigerian Transport Minister, Umaru Dikko, an exile living in Britain was kidnapped, drugged and crated for delivery in a diplomatic bag to the new government in Nigeria. The plan, executed by a Nigerian- Israeli team, failed and Dikko was discovered and rescued at the Stansted Airport.
The abductors had addressed the diplomatic bag in which Dikko was found to Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the Nigerian Foreign Minister. It was later established that Gambari’s name was just used as he had nothing to do with the abduction.
Gambari’s future career was saved and diplomacy gained from it through the global role he later played.
Today. November 24, 2025, Professor Gambari clocks 81 and for him, there is no slowing down.
