Iyorwuese Hagher

In 2020, he was awarded the Nigerians in Diaspora Integrity Ambassador at the Gani Fawehinmi Impact and Integrity Awards for his selfless service to humanity.

In 2019, he was a presidential aspirant under the platform of the Social Democratic Party. During his campaigns, Hagher urged the EFCC to prosecute presidents with fraudulent manifestoes, citing for example that the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari, had promised to provide at least 20% of annual budgets for education. Still, less than 7% of the budget was being allocated to the sector. He also cited Buhari's campaign promise of setting up special courts, accelerating trials, and jailing terrorists, kidnappers, and other criminals. He lamented that Nigeria had become the most insecure place to be, torn apart along religious and ethnic lines, and was gradually becoming a failed state.

Iyorwuese Hagher was appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigeria's Ambassador to Mexico with concurrent accreditation to Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala (2003-2008). In 2008, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua again appointed him as Nigeria's High Commissioner to Canada: a position he held until 2012. He engaged in cultural diplomacy, using theatre, drama and poetry to enhance bilateral relations between Nigeria and the host countries. This also availed him the opportunity to lecture in some universities in those countries.

Hagher is a recipient of one of Nigeria's highest honours, Officer of the Order of the Niger, for his role in peacebuilding in Nigeria, especially in negotiating for peace among the warring ethnic groups of Central Nigeria in 2003.

In 2000, he founded the Leadership Institute after retiring from the university. He became a public intellectual and opened up his inquisitive mind to be educated in different disciplines like peace and gender studies, conflict and mediation, and medicine and nutrition.

In 1994, he was appointed into the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria as the Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Power and Steel under the Sani Abacha administration. In 1997, he was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Health as the Minister of State – a position he held until the end of the administration in 1998, when Abacha passed on.

He was also elected as a member of the Constitutional Conference of 1994–1995.

In 1994, he was elected to the National Constitutional Conference.

After his compulsory National Youth Service Corps program in Bendel State (now Edo and Delta states), Hagher was appointed a pioneer staff of the Centre for Nigerian Cultural Studies and Drama Department at the Ahmadu Bello University as a graduate assistant at the age of 26. He taught and conducted research in African indigenous theatres. In 1990, he rose to the rank of a full university professor of Theatre and Drama for Development at the University of Jos, Plateau State. Hagher has published significant work on Tiv puppetry known as Kwagh-hir, which is one of the forms he is known to have used in his development efforts. His theatre works are known to address issues of corruption, governance, health, and social vices.

In 1983, he ran for election and won a landslide victory as a federal senator representing the Benue North-East constituency at the age of 34. He served in the senate as the Deputy Chief Whip. His tenure would however be truncated by a coup led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari, which ended the second republic on 31 December 1983.

Hagher was appointed the founding Director of the Benue State Arts Council in 1982. As head of the council, he worked with Tiv peasants in Central Nigeria using Kwagh-hir puppetry theatre as a social change agent. He also established the legendary award-winning Benue State Arts Council dance troupe.

Iyorwuese Hagher began his political life in 1977 when he was appointed the Benue State Arts Council Chairman. This enabled him to resuscitate the top ranks of the defunct United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) into the movement led by Joseph Tarka, his political mentor. The national movement started by J. S. Tarka evolved into the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) which formed the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979 and 1983.

He attended a missionary secondary school, run by the Christian Reformed Church in Canada and America, William Mackel Bristow Secondary School in Gboko, Benue State and Kuru Government Secondary School for his Higher School Certificate. In 1971, he was admitted into the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language in 1974. He later obtained his Master of Arts and doctorate in Drama at the same university in 1977 and 1981, respectively.

Iyorwuese Harry Hagher, OON (born 25 June 1949) is a Nigerian professor of theatre for development, playwright, poet, politician administrator and activist for social justice. He was a senator, cabinet minister, envoy and pro-chancellor of Afe Babalola University. He is renowned for his groundbreaking research on Kwagh-Hir theatre, which was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in 2019. Hagher is passionate about the issue of leadership. His plays are preoccupied with the search for true leadership and other solutions to Africa's socio-political problems. He is known to have engaged cultural diplomacy as a tool for foreign relations while serving as Nigeria's Ambassador to Mexico, and later High Commissioner to Canada. In 2019, he was a presidential aspirant, under the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He is currently the president, African Leadership Institute, Dayton, Ohio, United States.