A most remarkable Nigerian, Dr David Lambo
passed away on the 17th of March without leaving the type of ripples Nigerians
are famous for creating as testimonies for lives spent in great service on this
side of life. I suspect this is how David would have wanted it, to have his
passion and footprints in the service of humanity speak louder than the life of
a Nigerian who in itself was marked by outstanding achievements. A post by
his colleagues at Center for Humanitarian Dialogue(HD), in Geneva and Nairobi
which announced his death described him as a tireless humanitarian. It was an
apt description, possibly coined by someone who knew him a lot longer than
people like me who had the privilege of working with him at that stage of
his life when it served principally to point others in a direction that he had
followed for the largest part of his life.
It will not do much justice to David to dwell
too long on a personal life born into distinction and service, but it must be
mentioned, so that it serves as context for its remarkable success in charting
courses fueled almost entirely by a personal instinct to make a difference. His
father was the famous the Professor Adeoye Lambo, his mother a British-born
lady who lived her entire life in Nigeria for her family. He graduated from
University of Ibadan in 1971, those days when that made you one of the world's
best. He worked for the Economic Commission for Africa(ECA) and the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees(UNHCR) ,rising to a senior
position, and then left to spend a decade in the Nigerian private sector
attempting to make a difference in giving Nigerian and Ghanian agriculture a
modern competitive edge that was accessible to the small farmer. He returned to
the UN system, this time at the deep end of the UNHCR. In 1992 he served as
co-ordinator of the agency's largest repatriations operation ever organized
with the return of 1.5 million Mozambicans to their home country. Until he
retired in 2006,David was deeply involved in bringing the agency's services to
assist the defunct OAU and the government of Ethiopia.
The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue(HD) was to
provide a setting for putting in place David's passion and experiences in
dealing with conflicts and the search for peace and development in the African
continent. For more than a decade since he joined HD in 2006 as Senior Advisor,
he worked tirelessly to establish its Africa Programme. He was at the heart of
conflict prevention, mediation and peace-building in Africa, as Advisor to Kofi
Annan during the election violence in Kenya; as co-architect of many mediation
processes in Somalia; facilitator of dialogue processes in Liberia during the
2011 elections; the inspiration for the complex but ultimately rewarding
dialogue processes parts of Nigeria's Middle Belt; a key player in the delicate
and discreet efforts to ensure a peaceful transition to a new administration
before, during and after Nigeria's 2015 general elections. Above all he was a
mentor to many young people from all over the world, a trusted companion to
presidents and a source of hope and comfort to families and communities at
points of submitting to unending conflicts and crushing poverty.
To work with David was to learn the virtues of
sacrifice for others and limitless confidence that there are always solutions
to human conflicts, mostly in the willingness to explore options to violence. His
vast experience in dealing first hand with conflicts in many parts of Africa
gave him the rare quality of keeping a level head and an incredible ability to
read the basic issues with an uncanny ability. He will identify what many
conflicts share in common, as well as how they differ in character and
progression. From the tragic history of Somalia, he will draw worrying
similarities with the origin and developments of Boko Haram, and advise on
learning the right lessons by Nigerian governments and affected communities. He
was a walking encyclopedia on the linkages between underlying issues related to
exclusive political processes, unpopular regimes, disputed elections and
electoral violence. He would analyze weakly-rooted governments and tendencies
that encourage balkanization and violence, with lessons from South Sudan, Rwanda,
Congo and Somalia. He would reel out multiple success stories from mediation, and
highlight many instances where peace is secured around simple folk whose stakes
in peace and development are protected and promoted. Above all he never tired
in highlighting the intimate linkages between social justice, development and
sustainable peace.
In the last few years, David agonized over the
alarming growth of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria and its neighbors. He
was concerned that the context and nature of the insurgency is properly
understood by the Nigerian state, and that its responses are informed both by
the need to save the democratic process in Africa's largest nation as its only
guarantee for survival as one nation, as well as experiences of other nations
which had dealt, or a dealing with massive internal security challenges or
insurgencies. He espoused a long-term perspective that included a successful
military campaign, a vigorous enquiry over social values and structures that
may have been subverted before the rise of the insurgency or by it, and a
comprehensive and aggressive policy that will reconstruct, rehabilitate and
heal communities that have been damaged by the insurgency. He was passionate in
his conviction that Nigeria could benefit from experiences of many countries
across the world that had dealt with similar conflicts, and his kast two years
saw him visit every important leader from President Buhari to all key Ministers
and aides to garner support for an opportunity to expose our policy makers to a
range of choices in dealing with the current state of the fight against the
insurgency.
David's most unique footprint in Nigeria is to
be found in the largely unheralded success of the painstaking and laboured
dialogue processes he and HD engineered in and around Jos, Plateau and parts of
Southern Kaduna State. A decade ago, Jos led the way in terms of perennial
conflicts involving neighbours who had cohabited for decades. No one was ever
going to win in these circles of blood-letting, yet every attempted solution
ended up making the problem worse. In this regard, parts of Plateau resembled
Kaduna State. I hope one day David's colleagues will tell the world what it
took to create an atmosphere around northern Plateau that has largely brought
to an end the permanent state of siege under which every community lived. The
little that I know is that it involved an elaborate and extensive mapping of
issues and grievances, and a dogged pursuit of community leaders, combatant
youth, clergy, women groups, traditional and political leaders and security
agencies in a period spanning years, to come to accept to even acknowledge
existence of the others. 'Enemies' listed grievances and solutions, which were
then exchanged. When they met, arguments about issues ranging from ancient
history to recent incidents, land, identities, pride, injuries all kept
tensions high, until it became clear that everyone had a cause, a grievance and
solution, but none will find peace without some compromise and accommodation. In
the end, communities signed peace agreements that appear to holding more in
Plateau State than in Southern Kaduna. In his last few months, David was
excited about the invitation of Kaduna State government to revisit its earlier
efforts to create a framework for peace anchored around the agreements of
communities to design a peace process they can police and live with. I hope HD
will support further efforts to do in Kaduna State, what was done in Plateau
State.
David would not accept the image of a hero. His
humility and willingness to go wherever lie solutions or resources to
find solutions gave him the means to open doors many would give up on. He
was passionate about Nigeria and Africa, and lived his life like a very
small breed of elderly Africans who have not walked away from seemingly
hopeless generations. In 2015,President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senator Shehu Sani, David
and I spent three days at the Oslo Peace Conference. In those few days, you
could see that his courage in pushing himself in spite of very challenging
health situation was only surpassed by his incredible devotion to his family
and his aged mother who died only last year in Lagos. He was never without a
new idea or a project to find peace. The greatest legacy he lives behind is a
legion of people and colleagues who share his vision of Nigeria and Africa
where human dignity and development can be pursued and achieved through a
rediscovery of the basic foundation of human civilization: the capacity to seek
peaceful resolution to conflicts.
