• Envoy to serve as keynote speaker at anniversary conference at Harvard University today
Deji Elumoye in Abuja
President Bola Tinubu has congratulated Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim, on his election as Chairman of the United Nations General Assembly Fifth Committee on Budget and Administration.
Tinubu, in a congratulatory message on Wednesday, stated that the election of Ibrahim was noteworthy at a particularly critical moment for the United Nations, as the world body navigated significant financial realignment while advancing critical institutional reforms to strengthen its effectiveness, accountability, and long-term sustainability.
Tinubu stated regarding Ibrahim, “Your election to chair this important committee within weeks of official resumption at the UN validates your wealth of experience in public service, diplomacy, business leadership, and governance particularly as member of Nigerian Senate Committee on Budget and Appropriation and Chairman of Inter-Parliamentary Relations.
“Your previous roles in the private sector and public service distinctly equip you to provide the steady, strategic leadership required for this important responsibility.
“Through your background as a respected legal scholar with commensurate expertise in International Taxation and Business Administration, you have consistently demonstrated intellectual acumen and a deep understanding of the global governance and financial systems, providing valuable insight into fiscal management, institutional efficiency, and sustainable growth.”
The president said he was confident that, just as the reforms at home were yielding positive results, Ibrahim’s experience and unwavering commitment to excellence will justify his selection as Permanent Representative and make Nigeria proud in the work of the Fifth Committee and in support of the broader objectives of the United Nations.
“Congratulations once again on this remarkable achievement and on the confidence reposed in you by the international community,” Tinubu stated.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim will on Thursday (today) serve as keynote speaker at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of Ife Institute of Advanced Studies at Harvard University, Massachusetts, United States of America (USA).
The envoy had on April 11, 2026 been invited by Department of African and African American Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University to deliver the keynote address.
In the one-page invite signed by Chair, African and African and American Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor Jacob Olupona, Nigeria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations was expected to speak on “The Nigerian Project Revisited: Crisis, Continuity, and Possibility.”
The invitation letter read thus, “April 11, 2026
Harvard University, Dept of African and African American Studies Massachusetts, US ‘Re: invitation to Serve as Keynote Speaker at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Ife Institute of Advanced Studies.’
“Africa continues to produce exceptional individuals. Yet, it has not built institutions that can consistently sustain excellence. This conference asked why and whether that can change at scale.
“For the past decade, the Ife Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) has worked to address this gap by investing in rigorous and independent scholarship.
“Since its founding, IIAS has trained over 850 scholars, many of whom now shape academia, policy, and public life in Nigeria and across and beyond Africa. That progress is meaningful, but insufficient to meet the scale of the challenge.
“At this ten-year mark, we are convening a small invitation-only gathering at the John Knowles Pane Concert Hall, Department of Music, Harvard University on June 4, 2026, to discuss the theme, Budding Lasting Instruments: Path, Scholarship, and the African Project.
“I cordially invite you to deliver the keynote address titled: The Nigerian Project Revisited: Crisis, Continuity, and Possibility.
“This keynote sets the conceptual and historical foundation for the conference by reviewing the theme of “the Nigerian project” as an unfinished and contested enterprise. “Moving beyond familiar narratives of failure and dysfunction. The address interrogates how Nigeria’s institutional challenges have been shaped by deeper tensions between inherited structure and lived realities formal governance and informal practice, aspiration and accountability. What does it mean to speak of Nigeria as a “project.” and who bears responsibility for its construction? By tracing patterns of continuity alongside moments of rupture.
“The keynote reframes crisis life not as an endpoint, but as a condition that reveals both the fragility and the latent possibilities of institutional life.
“The address, thus, opens the conference space for rethinking what it would take to build institutions that are not only functional, but meaningful and enduring.” Jacob Olupona, PhD, Chair, African and African and American Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
