Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim.
By Anietie Akpan
Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations,Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim, will deliver a keynote address at Harvard University,barely days after assuming office at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Ibrahim, who resumed last Friday as Nigeria’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, received the invitation from Harvard, his alma mater.
In accepting the invitation, Ambassador Ibrahim said the engagement reflects growing global interest in Nigeria’s reform agenda.
He noted that the forum would provide an opportunity to present key aspects of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope strategy, particularly its focus on sustainable development and institutional reforms and long term economic transformation.
The keynote will be delivered at the 10th anniversary conference of the Ife Institute of Advanced Studies on June 4, 2026, at the John Knowles Paine Concert Hall.
The conference, themed “Building Lasting Institutions: Faith, Scholarship, and the African Project,” will bring together scholars and policymakers to examine Africa’s institutional challenges and development prospects.
In a letter dated April 11, 2026, the Chair of Harvard’s Department of African and African American Studies,Professor Jacob Kehinde Olupona, said the conference would address why Africa produces exceptional individuals without building enduring institutions.
Olupona said the institute had trained over 850 scholars in the past decade, many of whom are contributing to academia and public service across Africa and beyond.
He added that Ibrahim’s keynote, titled “The Nigerian Project Revisited: Crisis, Continuity, and Possibility,” would set the tone for discussions on governance, institutional gaps, and development pathways.
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