Adekeye Adebajo | Farewell to Nigeria’s pioneering female scholar-diplomat

Joy Uche Ogwu, Nigeria’s most prominent female scholar-diplomat, recently died in New York at the age of 79. In a deeply patriarchal, male-chauvinist Nigerian society in which women are often marginalised in political and diplomatic life, she was the ideal role model for many aspiring girls seeking a career in public service.

Ogwu was the first female director-general of the prestigious Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) between 2001 and 2006, the second female foreign minister (August 2006-May 2007) after Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s brief two-month stint in the post, and the country’s first female Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) between 2008 and 2017.

She was widely regarded as humble, charming, calm, self-effacing, soft-spoken, smart, stylish, and strikingly beautiful. Matthew Kukah, the Catholic bishop of Sokoto, described Ogwu as “a devout Catholic of deep faith and moral roots”. Harald Braun, Germany’s former ambassador to the UN who served with her in New York, noted that “she was a kind and caring human being, always remembered all around the globe by this unique combination of superb qualities”.

FROM NIIA TO FOREIGN MINISTER

Ogwu obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science at Rutgers University in New Jersey in the US, before completing her doctorate in the same subject at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) in 1977. She then joined the NIIA, where she would spend the next three decades at Nigeria’s premier foreign policy think tank. She foresightedly focused particularly on three issues that were not considered mainstream at the time: Nigeria’s role in South-South relations, charting alternative futures for Nigeria’s foreign policy, and disarmament.

Her nuanced scholarship on Nigeria and Brazil highlighted three paradoxes in this vital relationship between two regional powers: Brazil’s pervasive domestic racism clashed with Nigeria’s Pan-African foreign policy; Brasilia’s close ties with apartheid South Africa and anti-Cuba stance conflicted with Nigeria’s uncompromising anti-apartheid posture and backing of Havana’s role in Southern Africa’s liberation struggles; while Brazil’s penetration of Nigeria’s economy through Western multinationals contradicted Lagos’s efforts at achieving self-reliant development. Her innovative 1986 book Nigerian Foreign Policy: Alternative Futures used a solid understanding of Nigeria’s national interests and continuities in its foreign policy to chart future scenarios, insisting that: “To write about the future of Nigeria’s foreign policy is similar to writing about its past.”

Ogwu was the most dynamic and accessible of the six NIIA directors-general that I encountered. She sought to restore the institute to its former glory under its third director-general, Bolaji Akinyemi (1975-1983), re-establishing its policy influence and convening lively, high-profile seminars at which she was always present as the quietly exuberant hostess. She brought back the diplomatic and academic community, and published long-delayed journals, books, and lecture series. She renovated and painted dilapidated buildings and seminar rooms, and restocked its first-rate library. She would sometimes confide in me about her travails with misogynistic staff or languid legislators who forced her to travel to Abuja to have institute funds released. She always graciously provided a platform for my book launches, and published a lecture in 2006 I had delivered at the Institute on Nigeria and South Africa as regional hegemons.

LIFE ON THE EAST RIVER: THE UN

During her decade as Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN, the widely respected Ogwu served on the UN Security Council, chaired the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, was the pioneering president of the executive board of UN Women (led by former Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet), and chaired the board of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). On the UN Security Council, she used her unprecedented two stints in 2010/2011 and 2014/2015 to focus on Women, Peace, and Security; Security Sector Reform; and global conflicts, working closely with civil society. She was particularly pained by two votes on the council: a positive one on Libya in 2011 which facilitated the disastrous NATO intervention, and an abstention in 2014 on a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state. She later bemoaned the lack of foresight and direction from Abuja and other African capitals.

As chair of the UN Special Committee on peacekeeping operations, she consistently pushed for greater support for peacekeeping missions in Africa, as well as more effective coordination between the UN and African regional organisations. She called for more predictable funding and logistical support to back these efforts, and was particularly committed to human security and the protection of civilians, advocating “‘robust” peace enforcement to achieve these goals. She consistently condemned gender-based violence, and promoted the empowerment of women, noting: “Women everywhere continue to face major challenges in accessing and, indeed, enjoying their human rights despite years and decades of efforts.”

I occasionally visited her in New York where her schedule was always hectic, with plentiful visitors constantly streaming into Nigeria’s 22-floor green glass-building in Midtown Manhattan. She was always delighted to see a familiar face and take an hour to catch up on burning policy and personal issues. During later visits, I was sad to see the personal strain on her, as she courageously battled her surgeon husband Aloysius’s illness, to which he succumbed in New York in October 2014.

Once Ogwu finished her tenure in New York in 2017, we were not in touch as often, as she struggled with her own health issues. But, a totally devoted mother, she still took time to travel to Chicago to look after her sick daughter in 2023. One of Nigeria’s most dedicated and distinguished public servants, Ogwu served in the country’s 2005 National Political Reform Conference, and was honoured with the Diplomatic Excellence Award by Nigeria’s Society of International Law and Diplomacy in 2002, Nigeria’s Order of the Federal Republic in 2004, and the Emeka Anyaoku Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. She is survived by her five children and grandchildren.

Professor Adekeye Adebajo is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com