International Governing Council

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (Chair) has been Secretary-General of the Pan-African Movement in Kampala, Uganda since 1992. He is also a director of Justice Africa and the chair of PADEAP in London. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, where he received a DPhil in Politics and was President of the Africa Society, Dr Abdul-Raheem has extensive experience of political and social movements in Africa and has been at the forefront of several campaigns. He is editor of Pan Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the Twenty-first Century (Pluto Press, 1996).

Abubakar Momoh (Treasurer) teaches Political Science at the Lagos State University, Nigeria. He is the Vice-President (West African) of the African Association of Political Science, he has been a visiting fellow in Politics at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Finland and the Governance Institute of the Council for Development and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal. He has written articles on democratisation and political economy, and together with Said Adejumobi he has written and edited books on both the military and on the national question in Nigeria.

Dr Jibrin Ibrahim (Secretary) became director of CDD on 1 February 2006. Prior to that he was director of Global Rights in Nigeria. He received degrees in political science from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria and a doctorate in politics from the University of Bordeaux in France. Dr Ibrahim has lectured, published and consulted extensively on democratisation and governance in Africa. He has also served in the leadership of several national and international advocacy and research networks for constitutional and electoral reform and strengthening of civil society.

Council Members

Biko Agozino is an Associate Professor in Social Relations at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the oldest historically black institution of higher learning in the U.S. He was educated at the Universities of Calabar, Cambridge and Edinburgh, where he earned a doctorate degree in Criminology. Dr Agozino is the Series Editor of the multi-disciplinary series on Ethnicity, Gender and Race, and author of the critically acclaimed work on Black Women and the Criminal Justice System (Ashgate, 1997), and most recently the author of Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason (Pluto Press, 2003).

Zainab Bangura is the Presidential Candidate of the Movement for Unity and Progress in Sierra Leone’s most recent election. Prior to running for political office, Ms Bangura was the Coordinator of the Campaign for Good Governance, a leading civil society institution in Sierra Leone at the forefront of post conflict renewal. She is a widely respected human rights and democracy advocate and sits on the Board of the International Crisis Group.

Nana K. Busia, jr is the Programme Manager for West Africa at International Alert, a UK based international conflict resolution charity. Prior to joining International Alert, he was a staff member on the West Africa Programs of Amnesty International. He worked previously at the headquarters of the African Commission for Human and People's Rights in Banjul, the Gambia. He holds a degree in law and International Human Rights and has written extensively on these subjects.

Katy Diop was until recently the Regional Representative of Ashoka – Public Innovators in the Sahel region of West Africa in Dakar, Senegal. Formerly Programmes Coordinator at the Goree Institute in Dakar, Ms Diop studied at the Checkh Anta Diop University in Senegal and Amherst College in Boston, Massachusetts. She is now an independent consultant on resource mobilisation and diversity issues.

Obi Ezekwesili is a Chartered Accountant and Senior Special Assistant to Nigeria’s President on Budget Matters. She is an executive member of the ‘Concerned Professionals’, a campaigning organisation of lawyers, bankers, accountants and other professionals in Nigeria and also sits on the board of Transparency International, the Berlin based anti-corruption body.

Julius Ihonvbere is Senior Advisor to Nigeria’s president on Policy Matters, and Executive Director of the African Centre for Constitutional Development in Lagos, Nigeria. He was until recently, Program Officer in charge of Governance and Civil Society in the Peace and Social Justice program at the Ford Foundation in New York, USA. A Professor of Political Science at the Universities of Port Harcourt in Nigeria, Toronto in Canada and Texas at Austin, USA, Dr Ihonvbere has published extensively on Africa’s political economy, democratisation and constitutionalism, his latest book being The Transition to Democratic Governance in Africa: The Continuing Struggle (edited with J. Mbaku; Praeger, 2003).

Matthew Kukah is a Catholic Reverend Father and former Secretary-General of the Catholic Secretariat in Nigeria. He served on Nigeria’s Presidential Truth Commission into Past Human Rights Violations. Until recently a Senior Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Dr Kukah is a rigorous scholar and respected commentator, Dr Kukah received his PhD from the University of London. He is the author of the critically acclaimed work, Religion and Politics in Northern Nigeria since Independence (Spectrum, 1994), and most recently of Democracy and Civil Society in Nigeria (Spectrum, 2002).

Comfort Lamptey is now a Senior Advisor with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Geneva. Formerly Program Specialist in charge of Political Empowerment at the United Nations Fund for Women, UNIFEM, in New York, she was previously Africa Program Officer at International Alert, the conflict management organisation based in London.

Paul Okojie teaches law at the Manchester Metropolitan University, where he co-ordinates the School of Law exchange programs in Eastern Europe. Dr Okojie is a passionate campaigner for human rights and fundamental freedoms and has worked with minority groups in the UK, and has published work on policing and refugee issues.

Funmi Olonisakin is a Senior Research Fellow at the African Security Unit, Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College, London. She was until recently an adviser to the United Nations’ Secretary General’s Special Representative on War Affected Children. She studied at the Universities of Ife and London, where she obtained degrees in Political Science and War Studies. Dr Olonisakin has written extensively on security and gender. Her most recent publication is Reinventing Peacekeeping in Africa (Kluwer, 2000).

Ebrima Sall is the Programme Coordinator of the Post-Conflict and Reconstruction programme at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden. He was formerly Programme Officer at the leading social science network in Africa, CODESRIA, and a Professor of Politics at St Louis University in Senegal. Dr Sall received his PhD in Sociology from Sorbonne University and has written extensively on higher education in Africa.

Samuel Kofi Woods is currently Director of the International Human Rights Law Group, Sierra Leone. He was previously the Director of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission at the Catholic Secretariat in Monrovia, Liberia, and prior to that based at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. A lawyer by training and veteran human rights activists, Mr Woods is one of the significant new voices in the challenge against authoritarian rule in West Africa.