Timor-Leste Honours Nigerian Ex-UN Official Badejo With National Medal | Sahara Reporters

The ceremony coincided with the International Day of Peace and was attended by senior government officials, members of the diplomatic corps, as well as Badejo’s family and friends.

The President of Timor-Leste, José Ramos-Horta, has honoured Nigerian jurist and former senior United Nations official, Prof. Babafemi Adesina Badejo, with the Medal of the Order of Timor-Leste.

Badejo, Lead Consultant and Chief Executive Officer of Yintab Strategy Consults LLC, received the honour at a ceremony held on Monday at the Permanent Mission of Timor-Leste to the United Nations in New York.

The award was conferred under Decree of the President of the Republic No. 107/2026 in recognition of Badejo’s contributions to international peace and conflict resolution, particularly his work supporting efforts to restore constitutional order in Guinea-Bissau.

The ceremony coincided with the International Day of Peace and was attended by senior government officials, members of the diplomatic corps, as well as Badejo’s family and friends.

Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Laureate, described Badejo as “a true friend of Timor-Leste and a champion of peace,” according to a statement issued by Yintab Strategy Consults.

The decree specifically recognised Badejo’s contribution to the United Nations-led peacebuilding process in Guinea-Bissau.

Between January 2013 and June 2014, Badejo served as Chief of Staff to Ramos-Horta, who was then the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Guinea-Bissau.

During that period, the statement said, Badejo and Ramos-Horta helped rebuild cooperation between the United Nations and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and supported the restoration of constitutional order through transparent elections held in 2014.

Timor-Leste contributed more than $8 million to the Guinea-Bissau process, according to the statement.

Accepting the medal, Badejo said the choice of the International Day of Peace for the ceremony was significant because his relationship with Ramos-Horta had been forged through peacebuilding efforts.

“Your Excellency has chosen the International Day of Peace to honour me, and I find that fitting, because our friendship was forged in the rather less peaceful business of making peace,” he said.

Badejo thanked the government and people of Timor-Leste and acknowledged Nigeria’s role in efforts to stabilise Guinea-Bissau under former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was then the ECOWAS lead president on Guinea-Bissau.

He also acknowledged the contributions of former Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, then Chairman of ECOWAS, as well as representatives of the African Union and ECOWAS involved in the peace process.

Badejo dedicated the award to those involved in peacebuilding work without public recognition.

He said the honour was for “every quiet peace support operation official, every mediator, every civil society worker, every ordinary citizen who does the unglamorous work of holding a country together while nobody is watching or applauding.”

The decree also recognised Badejo’s wider service within the United Nations, where he served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia and held other senior positions.

His work has focused on peace, political stability, democratic institutions and governance.

The Timor-Leste honour is the second national distinction conferred on Badejo in less than a year.

On November 2, 2025, he was decorated with Djibouti’s National Order of 27 June 1977 by Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed on behalf of President Ismail Omar Guelleh.

That award recognised his contribution to peace efforts in Somalia, including his role in the Arta Peace Conference, which helped lay the foundation for Somalia’s subsequent governance structures.

Badejo retired from the United Nations in 2017 but has continued to work on peacebuilding, governance and conflict-resolution issues.

He is also the author of Somalia Just Before Al-Shabaab: Why Peace Was Elusive, an account of peacebuilding challenges in Somalia.

Yintab Strategy Consults described the latest honour as recognition of the international impact of Badejo’s decades of work as a Nigerian jurist, academic, mediator and international civil servant.