President Bola Tinubu has nominated non-career ambassadors for the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
The three nominees are Ayodele Oke, Colonel Lateef Are (retd.), and Amin Dalhatu.
A post by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, on X revealed that the postings would be finalised following Senate screening.
According to the statement, Dalhatu previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to South Korea under the Late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Oke, an alumnus of Emory University in Atlanta, is a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to the Secretariat of the Commonwealth of Nations in London.
Colonel Are was the director general of the State Security Service (SSS) from 1999 to 2007, served as National Security Adviser in 2010, and was an officer in the Directorate of Military Intelligence.
He also graduated with First Class honours in Psychology from the University of Ibadan in 1980.
Tinubu had on Wednesday forwarded the names of three non-career ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.
The letter was read during plenary by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
Akpabio has, therefore, directed the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs to review the nominations and report back to the chamber within one week.
There had been calls on the President to appoint ambassadors and high commissioners for foreign missions.
A former Nigerian External Affairs Minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, had argued that, despite internet access to information, diplomacy still required personal ambassadorial contact.
“I believe credible appointments should be made to the vacant ambassadorial posts. We need to fill them,” Akinyemi said during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today in September.
“The absence of ambassadors does not deny us information. But diplomacy runs on ambassadorial contact, the interaction between governments and ambassadors,” he added.
But while dismissing recent criticisms by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) about delays in ambassadorial appointments in June, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Nigeria’s diplomatic missions remain fully operational and effectively represented by seasoned foreign service officers, including experienced chargés d’affaires.
The ministry, while acknowledging long-standing structural and funding challenges that predate the current administration, said that Nigerian diplomats continued to serve with distinction, often under difficult circumstances.
Tinubu recalled the country’s ambassadors were recalled by President Tinubu in September 2023.
