Geoffrey Onyeama began his career as a research officer in the Nigerian Law Reform Commission Lagos from 1983 to 1984. He then worked as a lawyer with Mogboh and Associates in Enugu, Nigeria from 1984 to 1985. In 1985, he joined the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as an assistant programme officer for development cooperation and external relations, Bureau for Africa and Western Asia. He rose through the ranks at the WIPO to become deputy director general for the development sector in 2009. In November 2015 he was appointed Nigeria's Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Muhammadu Buhari. In this role, he has been central to the diplomatic dimensions of Nigeria's global scale restitution efforts.