LAGOS – Professor Sylvester Odion Akhaine was born on 12 April 1964 in Ekpoma to the late Chief Godwin Odion Akhaine and the late Mrs Victoria Odion Akhaine (nee Omoike).
He finished his primary school education at Ukpughele Primary, Ekpoma in 1977, and attended Opoji Grammar School (1979-1981), Iruekpen Grammar School (1982-1983), and Emuhi Grammar School (1984 and 1985) in Edo State, Nigeria.
He later earned a Certificate in Advanced Writing and Specialised Reporting at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos, in 1987; BA (Hons) in History, University of Lagos, 1992; and MA in History and International Studies, Lagos State University, 1998; and PhD Politics, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2004.
Professor Akhaine was first appointed as an Adjunct Lecturer in 2008 and was formally appointed as Senior Lecturer in June 2011 in the Department of Political Science.
He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 and Professor in 2017. Professor Akhaine has served the University in various capacities.
He was Head of the Department of Political Science, 2016-2018; Pioneer Coordinator of the Postgraduate Programme of the Department of Political Science; Chairman of the Seminar Series Committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and chairman of its Conference Committee.
Professor Akhaine conducted an orientation training for the University’s Centre for Information, Press and Public Relations (CIPPR), drawing on his extensive media network at no cost to the University in 2017.
Similarly, Professor Akhaine chaired the orientation event for the students’ Union elected members in 2017.
He has also served on the Organising Committee of the University maiden Conference on Quality Assurance in 2016. He was the faculty’s representative at the Directorate of Research and Innovation Annual Research Fair for two years.
He headed its scientific subcommittee in 2022 and generously promoted the annual event in his media space.
He is currently a member of the Senate Intra-University Transfer Committee. In the last one and a half decades, he has moderated over 100 postgraduate theses for both Nigerian and foreign institutions.
He supervised several undergraduates and graduate students, including PhD students.
Professor Akhaine has over 100 publications including books, monographs, book chapters and essays in learned journals such as African Affairs, Review of African Political Economy, Journal of Asia and African Studies, Liberian Studies Journal, Nigerian Journal of International Affairs, Canadian Journal of History, Political Studies Review, The Constitution and Socialscientia.
A multi- and interdisciplinary scholar, his research spans various academic fields and sub-fields such as Comparative Politics, Global Governance, Political Economy, Human Rights, and Demilitarisation.
His latest works are “Political Economy of Claude” Ake in S. Oloruntoba S and T. Falola, (Eds.), Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy (2020); “Populism in Africa and the Anti-corruption Trope in Nigeria’s Politics” in Michael Oswald (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Populism (2022) and “Boko Haram Insurgency” in George Klay Keih Jr. & Kelechi A. Kalu (Eds.), Insurgency, Terrorism, and Counterterrorism in Africa (2023), Lexington Books.
His forthcoming books include “Political Power in Nigeria” (Palgrave), and “Covid-19, Public Health and Geopolitics”.
Professor Akhaine is engaged in sundry academic and research-related activities. He is the Editor of The Constitution, a journal of constitutional development (arguably the leading journal in Nigeria today).
Also, he is a Contributing Editor to the UK-based Review of African Political Economy; a member of Editorial Advisory Boards of various academic journals in Nigeria such as Ekpoma Political Review and Otuoke Journal of Social Sciences, and a former Visiting Member of The Guardian Editorial Board.
He was Guest Editor of Socialscientia’s Special Issue on Covid-19 in 2020. Professor Akhaine served as the Director of Research of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA), South West, in 2019-2024.
He has written several columns for some of Nigeria’s leading newspapers and magazines. He was an invited contributor to the Special Edition of the UK-based Global, the international briefing in 2013.
He wrote “Electoral Monologue” and “London Notes” for the defunct Insider Weekly, “Covid 19 Diary” for The Guardian, and currently “Presidential Monologue’’, a weekly column in the same medium.
Professor Akhaine has contributed impressively to theory building by developing the concept of “secondary uneven development,” i.e., those policies from the development set and imperialism that reinforce the primary development gap between Africa and the West, engendered by slavery and colonisation.
Also, he propounded the “Enclave Paradigm,” “a rational survival strategy from the behemoths at the centre which calls for the creative use of the available resources and within the limits of the social space.” Besides, Professor Akhaine was among the very few to offer insights into the contemporary nature of the international community at the turn of the century and published by the Nigerian Journal of International Affairs in 2009.
He was the moving spirit behind The Guardian federalism papers entitled, Federalism is the Answer. Above all, Professor Akhaine identified the interface of the state, civil society and international community involved in human rights diplomacy and democracy promotion in Africa.
Professor Akhaine has served the Nigerian government and civil society in various capacities.
An outstanding voice in human rights and democracy promotion, Professor Akhaine was one of the frontline leaders of the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria.
He was at various times, the General Secretary of the Campaign for Democracy, Joint Secretary, and General Secretary of the United Action for Democracy in the struggle to end military rule.
Between 1995 and 1996, he was illegally incarcerated in solitary confinement by the military regime of General Sani Abacha in Birnin Kebbi Prison, Kebbi State.
On account of his ordeal, he was named Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International in 1995. He was the former Editor of The Victims, a human rights newsletter of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), and subsequently its Secretary for Research, Publication, and Documentation.
He is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lagos-based Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarization which he founded in December 1998. Upon the inauguration of the fourth republic, Professor Akhaine through CENCOD organised the first international conference on the 1999 Constitution that underlined its shortcomings contained in a volume titled, 1999 Constitution and the National Question in Nigeria.
In the Early 2000s, Professor Akhaine implemented a governance training programme in three of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones at the instance of the Ford Foundation.
In 2011 and 2012, he was the lead editor of the widely-acclaimed State of Human Rights in Nigeria, published consecutively for two years by CENCOD with the Support of the European Union.
In 2014, Professor Akhaine represented Nigeria at the Review Meeting of the Cotonou Accord (between African Caribbean and Pacific Countries and the European Union).
He was part of the advisory meeting on the Darfur Crisis held in Washington at the instance of Africa Today in 2009. Recently, he was the lead expert on the Political Party Performance Index at the Instance of Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) and the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS).
Professor Akhaine has received many awards. In 2004, he was nominated for the John Humphreys Freedom Award. A 2005 Stanford University Fellow on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (now Draper Hills Fellow), he received the Golden Award from the Nigerian Law Students Association for the Sustenance of Human Rights and Democracy in Nigeria in 2005.
Also, in 2009, he received the Tell Communications Democracy Award in appreciation of his outstanding contribution to the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria.
Professor Akhaine is married to Dr (Mrs) Aina Odion Akhaine with children, two boys and a daughter.
