A NIGERIAN peace and security specialist, Dr Adedeji Ebo, has been appointed Director and Deputy to the High Representative of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA).
Before his elevation on October 1, he was Chief of the Conventional Arms Branch at UNODA.
He said of his appointment on Twitter: ‘Disarmament is not an option. Rather, it is imperative for indivisible global peace.
‘The real enemies are ignorance, hunger, environmental degradation, discrimination, nativism and hate.
‘We are, and should be, brothers-and-sisters-in-arms against these.’
UNODA, which was established in January 1998 as the Department for Disarmament Affairs, supports multilateral efforts aimed at achieving the ultimate goal of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
Dr Ebo has a wealth of experience in the areas of arms control, security sector reform and peace and security more broadly, including with civil society and the UN at the headquarters and field and regional operations.
He was a Senior Fellow and founding Head of the Africa Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Governance (DCAF) from 2003 to 2008.
At DCAF he was one of the lead experts who worked on reforming the security sector in Liberia after the country’s two civil wars.
Dr Ebo then moved on to the UN where he served as the pioneer Chief of the Security Sector Reform (SSR) Unit in the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions from 2008 to 2020.
He also served as the Director of Political Affairs in the UN Office for West Africa and Sahel (UNOWAS) from 2017 to 2019; and Director of Political Affairs in the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire from 2015 to 2016.
Previously, in the national context, he was an Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of Political Science and Defence Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy until 2003.
Dr Ebo is also a Visiting Professor at the School of Global Affairs at Kings College London.
He studied at the University of Keele in the UK; the London School of Economics and Political Science; and Bayero University in Nigeria, obtaining his undergraduate, MSc and PhD degrees respectively, with specialisation in international relations and politics of the world economy.