When Joe Garba Met Henry Kissinger

Colonel Joseph Garba and Dr. Henry Kissinger 

Washington D.C. in late January of 1976.

The Nigerian Commissioner for External Affairs, Colonel Joseph Garba, meets his American counterpart Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger for the first time.

Garba: You have a good man in Lagos.

Kissinger: Good for whom, you or us?

PHOTO: From Joseph Garba’s memoir Diplomatic Soldiering. Published by Spectrum Books in association with Safari Books, Channel Islands, U.K.), 1987 238pp.

NB

General Murtala Muhammed, Nigeria’s then Head of State, took a mischievous delight in seeing the tall Garba shaking hands with the shorter Kissinger on the grounds that it showed someone “looking down” on the imperious U.S. Secretary of State.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2019)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.