Ex-Buhari Chief of staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari Bags Top Appointment at US University

Former Chief of Staff to the late President Muhammadu Buhari and one of Nigeria’s most respected diplomats, Prof. Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, has been appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania.

The prestigious appointment, for the 2026/2027 academic year, is part of the university’s 10th-anniversary fellowship and celebrates Gambari’s decades of global impact in diplomacy, peacekeeping, and international governance.

As a Fellow, the Ilorin-born scholar will be mentoring students, delivering lectures, and leading high-level discussions on African affairs and global diplomacy. This comes months after he was also named a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the university’s Center for Africana Studies.

Prof. Gambari, born in Ilorin in 1944, has had an illustrious career — from serving as Nigeria’s Minister of External Affairs, to becoming Nigeria’s longest-serving Ambassador to the UN, UN Under-Secretary-General for Africa, and founder of the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development.