Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Professor Tijjani Muhammad-Bande has been conferred with the National Honour of the Grand Commander of the Order of Niger (GCON).
This was revealed in a letter signed by the Minister of Internal Affairs George Akume and addressed to Prof. Bande.
Akume said President Muhammadu Buhari approved conferment of the honour on the Nigerian diplomat.
The letter, dated September 19, 2022, reads, “I have the Honour to formally inform you that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the conferment of the National Honour on you, in the rank of GCON (the Grand Commander of the Order of Niger.”
Prof Bande would join other recipients of the various national honours for investiture by the President on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at the International Conference Center (ICC), Abuja.
Ambassador Bande was the President of the United Nations General Assembly of the 74th session from September 17, 2019 to September 16, 2020.
From 2010 to 2016, he was the Director General of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru, Nigeria; and Vice Chancellor of the Usmanu Danfodio University from 2004 to 2009.
In 2021, he was re-listed by President Buhari as the Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New York.
Bande has had an outstanding career as a scholar and diplomat. He received a BSc (Political Science) from Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria (1979); an MA (Political Science) from Boston University, United States of America (1981); and a PhD (Political Science) from University of Toronto, Canada (1987).
He started his academic career at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Nigeria, rising from Graduate Assistant in 1980 to full Professor in 1998, and ultimately to Vice-Chancellor in 2004, a position he held for five years. During his tenure as Vice Chancellor, the University, with about 20,000 full-time students in various faculties, ranked first in the accreditation of academic programmes in Nigerian universities (2007).
Between 2000 and 2004, Professor Bande served as Director-General of Le Centre Africain de Formation et de Recherche Administratives pour le Développement (CAFRAD), in Tangiers, Morocco. Established by African governments in 1964, CAFRAD is the continent’s premier intergovernmental Centre for governance reform.
