His Excellency Chief Emeka Anyaoku

Welcome by the Public Orator

My Lord and Chancellor,

Half way along the Mall and adjacent to St. James’s Palace is situated Marlborough House, an early eighteenth century house by Sir Christopher Wren, once the home of the late Queen Mary and now the Commonwealth Secretariat. Inside, in what are quintessential English interiors, is the office of the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku. The bringing together of the old world setting with the activities of organising the modern day Commonwealth is felicitous, just as the appreciation of the present Secretary-General for the artefacts of previous centuries is perfectly compatible with his vision for the fast approaching twenty-first century.   

Emeka Anyaoku is a remarkable man. Now in his sixties, he was born at Obosi in Nigeria, educated at the Merchants of Light School, Oba, from where he went as a scholar to the University College of Ibadan and gained an honours degree in Classics of the University of London. Further study in England France led to an appointment in the Commonwealth Development Corporation and then, following Nigeria’s independence, he was invited to join its diplomatic service. He worked first in the Foreign Affairs Ministry and then, in 1963, he was sent to New York to join the Nigerian Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

Just as he had been singled out by his own government while working in the Development Corporation, so, after only three years in New York, he was noticed by the first Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and his secondment to the new Commonwealth Secretariat was sought and granted. Thereafter, he remained in the service of Commonwealth, successively as Assistant Director of International Affairs, then it’s Director and, in 1975, Assistant Secretary-General, before being elected by the Commonwealth governments to the Deputy Secretary-General post with responsibility for Administration and International Affairs. A brief spell as Foreign Secretary for this own country followed in 1983, before he returned to his old post in the Commonwealth. In 1989, he was elected the third Secretary-General and in 1993, he was re-elected for a second five-year term.

In his acceptance speech at Kuala Lumpur he spoke of the great honour he felt it was to be chosen to lead the Commonwealth and, in outlining his vision, he pledged himself to work for:

“A Commonwealth realistic and imaginative enough to be guided in its activities by the knowledge that our proper constituencies are not only the present generation, but also the future unborn of this world”

A Commonwealth determined to contribute to efforts to wipe out the intolerable historical legacy that sustains somethings unwillingly, the notion that some human beings are inherently superior or inferior to others.”

Chief Anyaoku’s role as a healer of international strife, a seeker after manual understanding and a patient negotiator have earned him respect throughout the Commonwealth and beyond. His career has spanned three momentous decades in the history of the world and in his various roles over those years he has been called upon to deal with an array of issues between peoples, cultures and political interests. The future of Gibraltar in 1967, civil war in his own country of Nigeria, the establishment of an independent Bangladesh in 1972 and the negotiations which led to democracy and peace in Zimbabwe and Namibia have all concerned Emeka Anyaoku and occupied much of his time and diplomacy. But perhaps most significant of all has been his role in South Africa where he has played a central part in overturning the rule of apartheid and in the establishment of Nelson Mandela’s government of racial equality.

His leadership and his passionate concern for basic human rights and values, his capacity to influence for good and the quiet authority which he has been able to exert over people and nations, not just by virtue of office, but because of his personal skill in negotiation, has, without a doubt, strengthened and revitalised the Commonwealth and increased its influence world-wide. His sense of vision and his ability to work with heads of states and with governments and yet to keep within sight the needs and aspirations of ordinary people has given him, during this decade particularly, a unique influence. Perhaps his part, with nine foreign ministers from the Commonwealth, in developing, at the Commonwealth summit at Vancouver in 1987, the Okanagan Statement, which sets out the action programme for ending apartheid, expresses most clearly his own philosophical passion for equality and human dignity.

For all these reasons, he has been received with honour in many places. Both he and his wife hold chieftaincies in Nigeria, and his home State of Anambra has accorded him a special title. In 1982, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the Niger by the Nigerian government. He is a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, the Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre in Cambridge and the World Commission on Forestry, and he is vice-president of the Commonwealth Trust. He is a member of the International Board of the United World Colleges and of the Governing Council of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Universities from Aberdeen to Ahmadu Bello and New Brunswick to Bristol have conferred on him honorary degrees and now today we are proud to invite him to become a member of this University.

My Lord and Chancellor, in the name of the Senate and of the Council, I present to you His Excellency Chief Eleazar Chukwuemeka Anyaoku for admission to the degree of Doctors of Laws (honoris causa) in this University.