Professor Agboola Ibrahim Gambari has been appointed as the new Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Prof. Gambari, a Nigerian scholar, diplomat and an indigene of Kwara State was appointed to replace the late Abba Kyari on Tuesday, May 12.

Gambari attended King’s College, Lagos and the London School of Economics where he obtained his B. Sc. (Economics) degree (1968) with specialisation in International Relations. He later obtained his M.A. (1970) and Ph. D. (1974) degrees from Columbia University, New York, USA in Political Science/International Relations.

Gambari began his teaching career in 1969 at City University of New York before working at the University of Albany. Later, he taught at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.

From 1986 to 1989 he was Visiting Professor at three universities in Washington D.C. namely Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University and Howard University.

He was also  a research fellow at the Brookings Institution also in Washington D.C. and a Resident Scholar at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, the Rockefeller Foundation-run center in Italy.

Gambari served as Minister for External Affairs between 1984 and 1985. He went on to serve as the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He was appointed by the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-moon and the chairperson of the African Union Commission as Joint African Union-United Nations Special Representative for Darfur effective  January 1, 2010.

In 2013, he was appointed as pioneer Chancellor of Kwara State University.

Gambari replaces Mallam Abba Kyari who was the Chief of Staff to President Buhari.  Kyari died on April 17  from the corona virus known as COVID 19.