Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed in­stru­ments of ap­point­ments to two new diplo­mats. They are Nyahu­ma Men­thuhotep Obi­ka, who has been ap­point­ed High Com­mis­sion­er to Nige­ria and Dr Neil Parsan, who has been ap­point­ed Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­naire and Plenipo­ten­tiary to the Unit­ed States as well as Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Mex­i­can States.

Both re­ceived their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment at the Prime Min­is­ter's Cham­ber of the Red House.

A state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said Obi­ka had been the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) since 1984. He has held sev­er­al po­si­tions, in­clud­ing di­rec­tor of the Caribbean His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, di­rec­tor of the But­ler In­sti­tute of Learn­ing and Labour and chair­man of the St Patrick's re­gion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Par­ent Teacher's As­so­ci­a­tion.

He is the hold­er of a Bach­e­lor's De­gree in Gov­ern­ment and His­to­ry and a Mas­ters De­gree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. The state­ment said Parsan would si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly serve as the Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States. He was a di­rec­tor in sev­er­al lo­cal and re­gion­al com­pa­nies. He is present­ly a di­rec­tor at the Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness Alum­ni and vice pres­i­dent of the Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He has con­sult­ed on sev­er­al spe­cial projects lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.