Cyril Obi

Cyril Obi is a program director at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Brooklyn, New York. He leads the SSRC’s African Peacebuilding Network (APN) and the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa programs. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and worked at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, Nigeria, and became an associate research professor in 2004. That same year, Dr. Obi was awarded the Claude Ake Visiting Chair at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. From 2005 to 2011, he was a senior researcher and led the research cluster on “Conflict, Displacement and Transformation” at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Uppsala, Sweden. He has published extensively on the political economy of oil, African politics and international relations, natural resource conflict, peacebuilding, peace, security, and development. Cyril Obi serves on the editorial boards of several international peer-reviewed journals, and is also a recipient of fellowship awards from Uppsala University; CODESRIA; African Studies Centre, Leiden; Oxford University; Salzburg Seminar; 21st Century Trust; and the SSRC. A 2020 Peace Distinguished Scholar Award recipient of the International Studies Association (ISA), he is currently an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK; and an Extraordinary Professor, Centre for Gender and African Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa.