Long before he became one of Nigeria’s most recognisable foreign-policy thinkers, Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi was a young boy growing up in Ilesa who would eventually travel across three continents in pursuit of education, scholarship and public service.
Born on 4 January 1942 in Ilesa, present-day Osun State, Akinyemi went on to become a professor of political science, diplomat, director-general of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and, eventually, Nigeria’s Minister of External Affairs.
His career brought together academia and diplomacy at a time when Nigeria was attempting to define its place in Africa and the wider international system.
From Ilesa to Oxford
Akinyemi’s education took him from Nigeria to the United States and Britain.
He attended Igbobi College, Yaba, between 1955 and 1959, followed by Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, from 1960 to 1961. He then travelled to the United States, studying at Temple University in Philadelphia from 1962 to 1964 before proceeding to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he studied from 1964 to 1966.
His academic journey eventually took him to Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied from 1966 to 1969.
By his late twenties, he had already established himself as a scholar of international affairs.
His academic career included teaching and visiting appointments in Nigeria, the United States, Switzerland, Kenya and Britain. He served as a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and at the University of Nairobi’s Diplomacy Training Programme in 1977, and became a Regents Lecturer at UCLA in 1979. He was appointed Professor of Political Science at the University of Lagos in 1983.
At the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs
One of the defining stages of Akinyemi’s career came in 1975, when he became Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).
He remained in that position until 1983.
The NIIA served as a major centre for research and discussion on Nigeria’s foreign policy and international relations. Under Akinyemi’s leadership, the institute became involved in questions affecting Nigeria’s diplomatic relationships, including relations with Angola.
His time at the institute helped establish him as more than an academic.
He was becoming a policy thinker whose ideas could influence the direction of Nigerian foreign affairs.
At 43, He Became Foreign Affairs Minister
In September 1985, during the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, Akinyemi was appointed Minister of External Affairs.
He was only 43.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs records him as occupying the office from 1985 to 1987, between Ibrahim Gambari and Ike Nwachukwu. More detailed biographical records place his tenure from 11 September 1985 to 21 December 1987.
His appointment brought an academic and intellectual approach to a portfolio that required Nigeria to navigate a complicated international environment.
During his tenure, he led Nigerian delegations to major international gatherings, including sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, the Organisation of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement and Commonwealth meetings.
The Idea of a “Concert of Medium Powers”
One of Akinyemi’s major diplomatic ideas was the Concert of Medium Powers.
The proposal sought to encourage countries with significant regional influence, but without the overwhelming power of the world’s superpowers, to work collectively and strengthen their bargaining position in international affairs.
It reflected Akinyemi’s broader thinking about how countries such as Nigeria could exercise influence beyond their individual economic or military strength.
He was interested in diplomacy not merely as a means of reacting to international events, but as an instrument through which countries could shape them.
The Technical Aid Corps
Another major initiative associated with Akinyemi’s tenure was the creation of the Technical Aid Corps (TAC).
The programme was designed to send Nigerian professionals to other developing countries, particularly in Africa, to provide technical assistance and professional expertise.
Rather than restricting Nigeria’s international assistance to financial contributions, TAC drew on the country’s human resources: teachers, doctors, engineers, lecturers and other professionals.
The scheme became an important part of Nigeria’s technical cooperation programme and remains one of the most enduring initiatives associated with Akinyemi’s time at the Ministry of External Affairs.
Beyond the Ministry
Akinyemi’s public career did not end when he left the ministry.
He continued to participate in national debates on governance, constitutional reform and Nigeria’s political future. He later served on the Uwais Electoral Reform Committee and was deputy chairman of the 2014 National Conference. He also became chairman of the National Think Tank.
His career consequently moved through several worlds: the university, the foreign-policy establishment, government and national political discourse.
That combination became one of the defining characteristics of his public life.
A Scholar in Public Life
Akinyemi’s story is significant because it demonstrates the role that scholarship once played directly in Nigerian public policy.
He was not a career politician who later entered academia.
He was an academic whose knowledge of international affairs eventually brought him into the centre of government.
From Ilesa to Igbobi College, from American universities to Oxford, from the NIIA to the Ministry of External Affairs, his career followed a remarkable trajectory.
His years as minister lasted only about two years, but they coincided with an important period in Nigeria’s diplomatic history.
The ideas associated with his tenure, particularly the Technical Aid Corps and the Concert of Medium Powers, became part of the broader record of Nigeria’s attempt to exercise influence in Africa and the developing world.
And decades after leaving office, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi remains an example of a Nigerian public intellectual whose career crossed the boundaries between the classroom, diplomacy and national service.
A scholar from Ilesa.
A professor of political science.
A diplomat.
And for two crucial years in the 1980s, the man responsible for representing Nigeria’s foreign policy to the world.
📸 Photo credit: Uyi Obaseki
Sources
– Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nigeria — official history of Nigeria’s foreign ministers.
– Biographical Legacy and Research Foundation (BLERF) — biography and career chronology.
– Bolaji Akinyemi & Associates — biographical information and record of his ministerial initiatives.
– Hallmarks of Labour Foundation — biographical profile and public-service career.
– The Guardian Nigeria — profile marking Professor Akinyemi’s 80th birthday and discussing his diplomatic career.
– TheCable — biographical profiles of Akinyemi’s academic and diplomatic career.
