FG finally okays ambassadorial postings

By Victoria Ojeme and Fortune Eromosele

The federal government has finally, announced the posting of Ambassador-Designates to Nigerian Missions abroad.

In a statement signed by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Gabriel Aduda, said that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the posting of Ambassador-Designates to Nigerian Missions abroad, maintaining that the list includes 43 Career Ambassadors and 52 Non-career Ambassadors.

The statement reads in part: “With this development, the process of requesting Agreement from the prospective host countries have commenced.

“The Ministry also wishes to inform that there will be an induction course for the Ambassador-Designates and their spouses which will hold on a date to be announced shortly to prepare and facilitate the movement of the Envoys to their respective Missions.”

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Reacting to this delay, Nigeria’s immediate past Ambassador to Singapore, Ogbole Amedu Ode called on the federal government to fall back on its institutional memory to effect a non-reoccurrence of such delays.

He said, “There should be, by now, some institutional memory of how it was dealt with in 2017 and how lapses experienced then can and should be improved on now and in the future. The delay in the deployment of Ambassadors five months after their confirmation by the upper house of the National Assembly is also an encore!

“In 2016, Ambassadors that were confirmed were not deployed until 2017. That situation left most missions in the hands of relatively junior and inexperienced officers with the attendant negative consequences.”

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He also urged the foreign ministry in meeting financial obligations, rents, local and home-based stall emoluments and insurance of properties.

“These sorts of challenges are not, in my view, entirely unexpected due to the slow response capacity of our bureaucracy to challenges of this sort. And that shouldn’t be so for the very fact of the negative shadow it can cast on our national image.

“It may not be totally out of place to speculate that a lot of exogenous influences could be displayed by individuals and power blocs to influence what should be a routine foreign ministry administrative occurrence (in liaison with the presidency, though). Such administrative undertakings must have the guiding principle of round pegs in round holes as a watchword,” he said.

Vanguard News Nigeria

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