President Bola Tinubu has nominated non-career ambassadors for the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

The three nominees are Ayodele Oke, Colonel Lateef Are (retd.), and Amin Dalhatu.

A post by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, on X revealed that the postings would be finalised following Senate screening.

According to the statement, Dalhatu previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to South Korea under the Late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

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Oke, an alumnus of Emory University in Atlanta, is a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to the Secretariat of the Commonwealth of Nations in London.

Colonel Are was the director general of the State Security Service (SSS) from 1999 to 2007, served as National Security Adviser in 2010, and was an officer in the Directorate of Military Intelligence.

He also graduated with First Class honours in Psychology from the University of Ibadan in 1980.

Tinubu had on Wednesday forwarded the names of three non-career ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

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The letter was read during plenary by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

Akpabio has, therefore, directed the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs to review the nominations and report back to the chamber within one week.

There had been calls on the President to appoint ambassadors and high commissioners for foreign missions.

A former Nigerian External Affairs Minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, had argued that, despite internet access to information, diplomacy still required personal ambassadorial contact.

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“I believe credible appointments should be made to the vacant ambassadorial posts. We need to fill them,” Akinyemi said during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today in September.

“The absence of ambassadors does not deny us information. But diplomacy runs on ambassadorial contact, the interaction between governments and ambassadors,” he added.

But while dismissing recent criticisms by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) about delays in ambassadorial appointments in June, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Nigeria’s diplomatic missions remain fully operational and effectively represented by seasoned foreign service officers, including experienced chargés d’affaires.

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The ministry, while acknowledging long-standing structural and funding challenges that predate the current administration, said that Nigerian diplomats continued to serve with distinction, often under difficult circumstances.

Tinubu recalled the country’s ambassadors were recalled by President Tinubu in September 2023.

Gov. Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state has said that the state government decided to close down all the state, federal and private primary, secondary schools and tertiary institutions as a result of the advice by the security agencies in the state.

Mohammed stated this in Bauchi on Wednesday before the commencement of the State’s Executive Council (SEC) meeting.

According to him, the security architecture in the state had received an intelligence of a plausible and imminent invasion of schools and abduction of students in the state, hence the decision to avert the attacks.

“Yes, we close our schools because we were asked to close them by the security agencies as they have more information than us, even though I’m the Chief Security Officer, I don’t have the personnel.

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“They have told us that there is a likelihood of abduction of our students as has been the practice all over which is why we sympathize with other states where these things happened.

“For being proactive is not to create fear but to be safe and secure is better than to go with ego.

“We have closed the schools and we will make sure that we do as much as we can to make those far away or hard to reach and vulnerable schools fenced maybe before the end of this year,” said Mohammed.

Mohammed added that all schools in the state must be fenced with security lights, adding that recruitment of vigilantes would go concurrently with the Safe School Programme as enunciated by the Office of the National Security Adviser which he promised would be implemented 100 per cent in Bauchi.

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Governor Mohammed also said that the five police officers that were ambushed and killed in Darazo Local Government Area of the state was not a banditry attack as being carried by some media but a community related issue.

“We had an incident in Darazo, an incident of banditry as reported but I want to tell you, it is not banditry, it is a community issue. We are here on the ground and we know it.

“We will handle it very well and I want to assure the general public that what happened in Darazo is not banditry but a community related issue and we will handle it with the police and DSS,” he assured.

Amid rising attacks and abductions by gunmen and suspected terrorists, President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday declared a nationwide security emergency.

This was contained in a statement personally signed by the President.

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Tinubu also ordered additional recruitment into the Nigerian Armed Forces and the police force.

More to follow…