Effective July 19, 2007 Ambassador Robert E. Gribbin served as Chargé d’Affaires of the United States in Nigeria in the period after the departure of Ambassador Campbell and prior to the arrival of his successor.
Ambassador Gribbin has served in fifteen African nations during the past thirty-five years, including short assignments as chief of mission in Burundi, Chad, Djibouti and Mauritius. Prior to retirement he was the U.S. Ambassador in Rwanda (1995-1999) and ambassador in the Central African Republic (1992-1995). He has been a member of four American delegations to the UN Human Rights Commission and twice to the United Nations General Assembly. He is the author of a memoir entitled In the Aftermath of Genocide: the U.S. Role in Rwanda.
Ambassador Gribbin is from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He received a BA from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee and an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya and has driven the length and breadth of Africa from Cape Town to Tangiers. He and his wife Connie have two adult sons and one grandson.