The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has announced the appointment of Maj. General Benjamin Sawyerr of Nigeria as the Force Commander for the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei, UNISFA.
This was confirmed Tuesday, 1 February, 2022 by Air Commodore WM Maigida, the immediate past Acting Director of Defence Information while handing over to Major General Jimmy Akpor who, on Friday, took over as the new Director of Defence Information.
TheFact Nigeria reports that UNISFA is a United Nations peacekeeping force in Abyei, and was approved on 27 June 2011 by the United Nations Security Council in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1990 after a flareup in the South Kordofan conflict earlier in June 2011.
Abyei is an area of 10,546 km2 on the border between Sudan and South Sudan that had been accorded “special administrative status” by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict (Abyei Protocol) in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War.
Sawyerr, who takes over from Major Gen. Kefyalew Amde Tessema of Ethiopia, has a military career spanning more than 34 years with the Nigerian Army, including serving as the Director of Defence Information of Nigeria’s Defence Forces since 2021.
Erstwhile Commandant of the Nigerian Army Armour School in Bauchi State, North-East Nigeria between 2020 and 2021, the new UNISFA Force Commandant held the position of Brigade Commander twice in North-East Nigeria. He was also Commanding Officer of the Nigerian Battalion with the United Nations Mission in Liberia between 2009 and 2010.
Sawyerr also served as the Director of Plans at the Nigerian Army Headquarters between 2019 and 2020, and Deputy Director of Doctrine and Combat Development from 2017 to 2018.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria and a Masters in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras in India.
