Joseph Garba, 59; Former President of U.N. General Assembly
Joseph Garba, 59, a former Nigerian foreign minister and anti-apartheid campaigner who became president of the U.N. General Assembly, died Saturday in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, after a brief illness.
Garba headed a U.N. committee dedicated to fighting South African white-minority rule in the 1980s before leading the General Assembly beginning in 1989.
Garba was born in Langtang and spent nearly two decades in Nigeria’s military before serving as minister of foreign affairs under consecutive military regimes led by Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo.
Garba became Nigeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations and served as General Assembly president for a year. In the 1990s, he became a political analyst and moved back to Nigeria.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Garba a leading figure in Nigeria’s campaign against apartheid.
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