President Bola Tinubu has nominated three non-career diplomats to lead Nigeria’s missions in three of its most strategically important foreign postings, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
The nominees, Ayodele Oke, Colonel Lateef Are (retd.), and Amin Dalhatu, were announced on Wednesday, with their appointments set to be finalised upon Senate approval.
The announcement came through a post on X by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, underscoring the administration’s intent to reposition Nigeria’s foreign policy presence in key global capitals.
The decision follows months of growing public pressure on Tinubu to fill ambassadorial vacancies left after a sweeping recall of diplomatic envoys in September 2023.
Ayodele Oke, one of the nominees, brings deep institutional knowledge of Nigeria’s intelligence and multilateral relations. A former Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), he previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to the Secretariat of the Commonwealth of Nations in London and is an alumnus of Emory University in Atlanta.
Colonel Lateef Are (retd.), another appointee, served as Director-General of the State Security Service from 1999 to 2007 and later as National Security Adviser in 2010. He holds a First Class degree in Psychology from the University of Ibadan and is regarded as one of the most seasoned figures to emerge from Nigeria’s intelligence community. The third nominee, Amin Dalhatu, has already served in a diplomatic role, previously holding the post of Nigeria’s ambassador to South Korea during Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
On Wednesday, Senate President Godswill Akpabio read Tinubu’s letter of nomination on the floor of the Senate and directed the Committee on Foreign Affairs to screen the candidates and report back within one week.
The postings to Washington, London, and Paris are widely viewed as critical diplomatic assignments, carrying responsibilities that span defence cooperation, trade, diaspora engagement, and political relations with regional blocs such as the EU and NATO.
The nominations arrive amid a broader national conversation about the role of ambassadors in modern diplomacy. In September, former External Affairs Minister Bolaji Akinyemi argued that digital communication and intelligence networks cannot replace the strategic value of in-person diplomatic engagement.
While some critics including the African Democratic Congress (ADC) have attributed delays in appointments to administrative hesitation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed those claims, insisting that Nigerian missions abroad remain functional under experienced chargé d’affaires and career foreign service officers. The ministry also acknowledged persistent structural and financial constraints within the diplomatic corps, challenges that span multiple administrations.
Tinubu’s move to appoint non-career diplomats signals not only a push to reassert Nigeria’s influence abroad, but also a broader recalibration of how the country intends to be represented in capitals where geo-political calculation, intelligence cooperation, and economic leverage intersect.
