A Life of Influence and Inspiration
There are very few people in this world whose chance encounter with you has such a transformative impact on your growth and development as a person. One such individual was Professor Joy Ogwu, a former Nigerian Foreign Minister and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who recently passed away. Her influence extended far beyond her professional achievements, touching the lives of many through her mentorship and unwavering belief in the potential of young minds.
A Meeting That Changed Everything
I first met Professor Ogwu at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Victoria Island, Lagos. I had gone there to invite and solicit sponsorship for a planned symposium by the International Relations Students Association (IRSA) of Obafemi Awolowo University. At the time, I was the President of the student body. Dr. George Obiozor, the then Director General of the Institute, was busy and could not see me. I decided to approach other senior research fellows instead.
I came across her name in the research department as the Head of the International Politics Division of the NIIA. I knocked on her door, and she welcomed me in. I introduced myself as a student from the Department of International Relations at Ife. Before I could explain my purpose, she asked about my professors and teachers at the department—Professor Amadu Sesay, Dr. Emeka Nwokedi, Reverend Fr. (Prof.) Dokun Oyeshola, and Dr. Jide Owoeye. She mentioned that Dr. Owoeye had recently presented a brilliant paper on Japan at a conference hosted by the research department.
She told me that the department was a great place for students serious about academic work in International Relations, as it housed some of the best minds in the discipline in Nigeria. Then, she posed a question: “I hope you are a good student because I will ask your teachers about you when next they come to the NIIA, or I visit Ife for PhD thesis defense as an external examiner.”
A Mentor’s Guidance
When I eventually invited her as a speaker for our symposium, she said our dates conflicted with her upcoming tenure as an honorary visiting professor at the University of London Institute for Latin American Studies. However, she offered me something even more valuable—a goldmine of contact information of almost all the key players in Nigeria’s Foreign Policy establishment.
From that address book, I got the contact information of General Ike Nwachukwu, a former Foreign Affairs minister during General Ibrahim Babangida’s administration. His office was conveniently close to the Kofo Abayomi premises of the NIIA, and he agreed to participate. But what struck me most was her profound advice: “You should pursue the objective with single-minded devotion. Everyone was once a student and would gladly love to participate in any capacity that would develop the next generation of leaders.”
This gave me an enormous boost in morale, and as she foresaw, several notable figures like General Joseph Garba, Ambassador Peter Onu, and Ambassador Adebayo Adedeji agreed to be part of our student program at Ife. However, due to resource limitations, we were only able to bring General Ike Nwachukwu as a special guest for our student departmental association week.
A Lasting Impact
Professor Ogwu’s faith in me came full circle when I was later posted to the NIIA for my one-year National Youth Service (NYSC). She saw me again for the first time after our last encounter. I was assigned to the protocol department, but she immediately ordered my transfer to the research department as her research assistant.
I remember that Friday vividly. Once transferred, she personally went around the offices of her colleagues to introduce me as their new intern and research assistant. But that wasn’t all—on the same day, she brought out five books that I should read and do a five-page review of each by Monday. That task, along with subsequent assignments, was overwhelming for a youth corps member who thought of the service year as a period for fun and youthful excitement.
When I submitted the reviews, she was impressed and used the opportunity to set out a template of how I would spend my time at the institute. She emphasized the importance of writing policy briefs and academic papers, suggesting that the best way to achieve these goals was through extensive reading and practice.
A Legacy of Excellence
Throughout the service year, I was preoccupied with reading different titles on various areas, particularly her specialty on International Politics, Nigerian Foreign Policy, International Organizations, and South-South Cooperation. More importantly, she introduced me to writing policy briefs. She believed that any student of the social sciences, especially international relations and political science, must follow new developments and think ahead about the policy implications for the country, conveying such knowledge through concise policy briefs to the actors in question.
I never truly appreciated her drive for excellence until later in my professional career as a reporter and as a Soldier and intelligence analyst in the United States Army. The address book she gave me became my magic wand as a foreign affairs reporter. There was no one in Nigeria’s Foreign Policy orbit that I did not have access to, thanks to her generosity.
Her guidance proved invaluable when I became an intelligence analyst. I saw how important the five Ws and H—who, what, when, where, why, and how—were in conceptualizing problems and making accurate predictions. Even during my participation in the coverage of the U.S. Bush-Gore elections as part of the State Department’s International Visitor Program, her advice helped me navigate visa issues.
A Woman of Faith and Generosity
Professor Ogwu was a good woman, a great human being with a genuine generosity of spirit. She had a unique ability to identify potential in young persons and embark on a deliberate long process to mentor and encourage them to blossom in their own life sojourn and pursuits. Sometimes, I couldn’t explain such goodness, always doing good to others with a disarming charm and irresistible smile.
She was a devout Catholic and once mentioned how inspirational her meeting with Pope John Paul II was. She would end every conversation with “It is well, God bless you o.” Even when I traveled to New York City to see her in her hospital bed, with no strength left, she retained that quiet demeanor, a certain steadiness, serenity, and grace displayed in calm quiet humor.
A Life Dedicated to Service
Professor Ogwu stood out in her abiding faith and love for her country. She devoted her entire life to serving Nigeria. This manifested itself not only in her body of work on Foreign Policy and International Economic Relations as an intellectual but also in Diplomacy as a Stateswoman.
She was part of the young group of academia who made the NIIA a bustling hotbed of ideas and a foremost Foreign Policy think tank in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Eventually, she rose to head the institute as its Director-General from 2001 to 2006. She later served as Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration (August 2006–May 2007) and as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2008–2017).
A Personal Connection
When Queen Elizabeth II died, Professor Ogwu was stricken with grief. She shared with me that when Queen Elizabeth visited Nigeria for the first time in 1956 during her Commonwealth tour, she was one of the girls who presented flowers to the Queen in Port Harcourt. She was just a 10-year-old elementary school pupil at the time. The other young schoolgirl who presented flowers to the Queen at Ibadan during that same Commonwealth tour of Nigeria in 1956 was Ms. Tokunbo Awolowo, now Dr. (Mrs.) Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu.
Thus, it was with profound joy that Professor Ogwu received the Queen when she served as President of the United Nations Security Council during the Queen Elizabeth’s July 6, 2010, address to the United Nations General Assembly. She revealed to me that protocol did not allow her to share her earlier childhood encounter with the Queen in Port Harcourt, Nigeria in 1956.
A Life Well Lived
Indeed, Professor Ogwu’s biography has been rehearsed in several places, but having the good fortune of knowing her for over 30 years from when I became her Research Assistant (1995), I can testify to some lesser-known facts about her. Her extraordinary service as an undercover Intelligence agent for the Nigerian Armed Forces during the Nigerian Civil War. She once told me she was a covert operative behind enemy lines during the Nigerian civil war as a young woman. As a Soldier, I was surprised, but the reporter in me decided to prod her for more information on the subject. However, like all good undercover agents, she decided to take the account of her experiences and that part of her life to the grave.
May her sweet gentle soul rest in peace and her memories remain a blessing.
Dike, a former Foreign Affairs reporter with The Guardian Newspapers, was Professor Joy Ogwu’s Research Assistant during his compulsory National Youth Service at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos.
