Wide view of the Hall
General Assembly Seventy-second session, 93rd plenary meeting
Election of five non-permanent members of the Security Council

Earlier this week, Nigerian diplomat Professor Tijjani Mohammad-Bande was elected President of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) scheduled for September, 2019.

Every year, world leaders who are members of the United Nations converge in New York, headquarter of the United Nations (UN) to give speeches on better ways of moving their nations forward collectively and proffer solutions global issues such as world peace, poverty eradication, addressing hunger, curbing insecurity, climate change, etc.

The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. The Assembly has adopted its own rules of procedure and elects its President and 21 Vice-Presidents for each session.

Prof. Muhammad-Bande will coordinate the weeklong meeting where leaders will make it their world stage but one thing to note is that his election is just for one year and another person will take over.

He is Nigeria’s current Permanent Representative in the UN, the third Nigerian to hold the office after Gen. Joseph Garba and Prof. Joy Ogwu, respectively.

He is not new in the scheme of things in the United Nations; he was the Vice President of the General Assembly during the 71^st session.

Muhammad is a member of the advisory board of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre and Chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Group between 2018 and 2019.

The 61 year old diplomat is a graduate of Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University in 1979 and also 1981 in Boston University, USA. He bagged his doctorate degree in Political Science from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1987.

Professor Tijjani was a former Vice Chancellor of Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto State from 2004 to 2009.

He served as the Director General of intergovernmental Centre for governance reform between 2000 and 2004, Le Centre Africain de Formation et de Recherche Administratives pour le Dèvelopement (CAFRAD) in Tangier, Morocco. Established by African Governments in 1964, CAFRAD is Africa’s first intergovernmental Centre for governance reform.

He was the former Director General of Nigeria’s National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos, Plateau State; the country’s most reputable policy institution for training leaders from the public and private sectors, including high ranking officials of Nigeria’s Armed Forces.