Aiyub Omar, born in 1975 is a Malaysian diplomat who is currently serving as a Malaysian High Commissioner to Nigeria . [1]
Aiyub started his career as an Administrative and Diplomatic Officer in 2001 at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Malaysia. After completing the Public Management Diploma course in 2002, he was accepted into the foreign service and began his diplomatic career as Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia. In 2003, he was assigned to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN), in New York for 4 months which gave him his first exposure to multilateral negotiations on international issues. From 2004 to 2008, he served at the Malaysian Embassy in Spain as Second Secretary.
After returning to Malaysia in 2008, he was offered a scholarship by the British Government to attend the Foreign Service Program course at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom for 9 months. After completing his studies, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had served until 2012. He was among the key people responsible for coordinating the establishment of the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program (MTCP) Secretariat which was then transferred from the Economic Planning Unit (EPU), Prime Minister's Department. He made significant contributions during his stint with the MTCP Secretariat, focusing on the international development cooperation engagement under the framework of South-South cooperation by helping developing countries in the fields of education, ICT, taxation and rural development among others. Along with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Information (MOSTI), they formulated a specialized training course in the area of information technology for Papua New Guinea in 2010. Together with Australian Aid, he along with the International Languages Teachers Training Institute (IPBA) was assigned to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012 to develop the education curriculum in Afghanistan according to the education model in Malaysia. He also worked with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) during a fact-finding mission to South Sudan to develop a specialized course on the rural development for South Sudan which then, had just achieved its independence merely a month in August 2011. He has also engaged with JICA in developing some other specialized courses for countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos in 2012. Later in that year, he was assigned to Islamabad, Pakistan until 2016 as a Counselor. After that, he returned to Malaysia and was tasked as Director in the Policy Planning and Coordination Department for 2 years and then as Director in the Center for Leadership, Negotiation and Public Diplomacy, at the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR) for almost 2 years.
On 1 November 2019, he was appointed as the Consul General of Malaysia in Medan, Indonesia, which he served until 21 January 2024. After receiving a letter of credential from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Ibrahim on 20 March 2024, he was appointed as the High Commissioner of Malaysia to Nigeria [1] following the footsteps of his maternal family line, the late Tan Sri Zain Azraai Zainal Abidin who once held an important position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.