United Nations Secretary-general, Antonio Guterres has appointed retired Lt. Gen Chikadibia Obiakor as Head of a U.N. Board of Inquiry to investigate a series of attacks on hospitals in Syria’s last opposition stronghold in the northwest.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who announced this on Friday said that the three-member board, will start work on Sept. 30.
Other members of the Board are Janet Lim of Singapore and Maria Santos Pais of Portugal.
Dujarric said the board will ascertain the facts of the attacks and not assess blame. Its findings will not be made public, he said.
Lt. Gen. Obiakor, retired in 2011.
He was a former Military Adviser for Peacekeeping Operations and former Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
Obiakor joined the Nigerian Army in 1973.
He served as the General Officer Commanding, Second Mechanized Division, of the Nigerian Army, as Commander of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) Artillery Brigade in Liberia in 1996 and 1997, and as ECOMOG Chief Coordinator of the Liberian elections in July 1997.
He also served as Chief of Administration of the Nigerian Army, with responsibility for the welfare, discipline and medical services for all Nigerian military personnel.
Born on 18 February 1951, Obiakor, a graduate of the National War College in Abuja also holds a Master of Science degree in strategic studies from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, and has participated in numerous international military courses.
The UN Secretary General had announced the establishment of the Board Of Inquiry on August 1, following a series of attacks on hospitals in the Idlib in northwest Syria.
