A renewed human rights and pro-democracy activist, Prof. Sylvester Odion Akhaine is slated to deliver the 103rd Inaugural Lecture of Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo next Tuesday.
Titled, “Shifting for Good: The Weapon of Empiricism in the Disorder of a Third Wave of Democracy in Africa”, the lecture promises to explore trends in comparative politics across Africa and the world.
Scheduled for the Buba Marwa Auditorium at LASU’s Ojo Main Campus, Ojo, the event is expected to be presided over by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, and will draw prominent guests from the academia, civil society, media and the political class from different parts of the country.
Akhaine, a leading Professor of Political Science with specialisation in Comparative Politics, has over 100 published papers in renowned journals, monographs, books and other publications.
A former General Secretary of Campaign for Democracy, the arrowhead movement that galvanised civil action to end military rule in 1999 in Nigeria, he was also a former Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students, playing a front role in the anti-Structural Adjustment Programme campaign in the late 1980s. He was a member of the Marxist League, a radical group at the University of Lagos.
After his graduation with a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Lagos in the early 1990s, Akhaine had wanted to immediately enlist for a Master’s programme but he took a break to engage actively in the ensuing pro-democracy agitation arising from the General Ibrahim Babangida regime’s annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election, believed to have been won by frontline business mogul, Bashorun Moshood Abiola.
He later enlisted for a master’s programme in the Department of History and International Studies at LASU with his thesis entitled “Human Rights Diplomacy and Authoritarian Regimes: A Case Study of Nigeria”. He also earned a PhD from the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London in the United Kingdom. His PhD thesis, entitled, “Human Rights Diplomacy and the Democratic Project in West Africa” further evinces his authority on issues concerning human rights and pro-democracy struggles in Africa.
A former Executive Director of the Centre for Constitutionalism and Governance (CENCOD), Akhaine is a member of the editorial board of The Constitution, a journal of Constitutional Development and a much sort after resource by academics across the world, which has been published by CENCOD for many years.
