By Editor
President Tinubu has nominated non-career ambassadors for three countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
The presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, said this in a statement in Abuja.
The three nominees are Ambassador Ayodele Oke (Oyo State), Retired Colonel Lateef Kayode Are (Ogun State), and Ambassador Amin Mohammed Dalhatu (Jigawa State).
The postings will be finalised following Senate screening, signaling an expected end of logjam and uncertainties of over two years.
Ambassador Amin Mohammed Dalhatu previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to South Korea during President Buhari’s administration, having been first appointed in 2016.
Ambassador Ayodele 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.
Retired Colonel Lateef Kayode Are was 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 graduated with First Class Honours in Psychology from the University of Ibadan in 1980.
The president sent the list to the Senate for confirmation, on Wednesday.
“The list contains three names for now, I am sure others will follow,” Senate President Godswill Akpabio said after reading the letter from President Bola Tinubu.
After President Donald Trump of the United States blacklisted Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), many blamed this on the non-appointment of ambassadors.
In an interview he granted in September, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, dismissed concerns that diplomatic missions were paralysed without appointed envoys.
“All our embassies are functioning well. The chargé d’affaires in each mission is carrying out responsibilities effectively. The absence of ambassadors has not created a vacuum.
“Diplomacy is not a one-man show. The system is designed to cope with such situations,” he had said.
Tuggar noted that the appointment of ambassadors is strictly the president’s prerogative and will be made in due course.
He argued that many countries go through long periods without ambassadors in some missions, without it weakening diplomatic ties.
“This is not peculiar to Nigeria. Diplomacy provides for such scenarios. What matters is substance, not optics,” he said.
