A Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, Emmanuel Eghosa Osaghae, has been appointed Director General of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).
Osaghae, former Vice-Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Okada (2004-2018), was the 2019 Claude Ake Chair at the Uppsala University, Sweden. He was the 2017 Van Zyl Slabbert Professor of Politics and Sociology at the University of Cape Town and the 2014 Emeka Anyaoku Visiting Chair of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. His Anyaoku Chair Inaugural Lecture, A State of Our Own: Second Independence, Federalism and the Decolonisation of the State in Africa, in April 2014 became the first inaugural lecture by a Nigerian in the history of the University of London. He was a Rockefeller ‘Reflections on Development’ Fellow (1989/90), and was most recently a MacArthur Fellow.
Professor Osaghae served as Chair of the Panel on Quality Assurance Assessment, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2011-2012, and served served on the Steering Committee of the Consortium for Development Partnerships, a successful model of North-South intellectual collaboration that involved institutions from North America, Europe and Africa between 2005 and 2012.
He is a member of several learned societies and serves on the editorial boards of reputable social science journals. He has published extensively on ethnicity, federalism, governance and state politics in books and journals,
He is married to Veronica Amen (nee Jatto), and they are blessed with children and grandchildren. In December 2008, he was ordained a Reverend of the Anglican Church by the Bishop of Benin Diocese (Anglican Communion), Rt. Rev. P.O.J. Imasuen.
