After a first degree at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, I joined the Centre of West African Studies (CWAS) as a PhD student to work on the history and politics of Remo under the supervision of Paulo de Moraes Farias and Karin Barber. After my graduation, I held the Kirk-Greene Junior Research Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and I returned to CWAS to take up a lectureship in 2001. In 2009 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer

I am responsible for the following courses:

• Doing Anthropology/ Enthropology and Ethnography (LC)
• Perspectives on Africa (LI)
• Ethnography in Practice (LI/ LH)
• The World Religions and Modernity in Africa (LI/ LH)
• Research Methods and Skills in African Studies (LM)

I supervise students on African and Nigerian history, politics and development. My current PhD students are:

• Leena Hoffmann: Democratisation and Godfatherism in Nigeria
• Nozomi Sawada: ‘Black Englishmen’ in the British Colony of Lagos and associational activities in the late 19th/ early 20th century

My former PhD students include Dr Obinna Okwelume (The Effects of the Mass Media on Attitudes to the Osu Caste System in Eastern Nigeria), Dr Beatrice Duncan (Land use, gender and cocoa farming in Ghana), Dr Juliana Mafwil (Women’s empowerment in the Nigerian agricultural sector), Sulaiman Yusef Balarabe Kura (Political parties and democratisation in Nigeria), Dr Comfort Davis (Igala women traders and micro-credit enterprise in Jos, Nigeria), Dr Afua Twum-Danso (The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the economic, social and historical dimensions of childhood in Africa) and Dr Justina Dugbazah (Gender, migration and rural livelihoods in Ghana: a Case study of the Ho District).

I am delighted that all my former PhD students have moved on to work in British and African universities as well as national and international organizations, including the UN.

Most of my research to date has focused on Yoruba history and politics in Nigeria. My study of Yoruba ethno-nationalist politics has been funded by the ESRC and the British Academy, and my recent book, entitled Obafemi Awolowo and the Making of Remo: The local politics of a Nigerian Nationalist examines the way in which Nigeria’s most important Yoruba politician creatively drew on and influenced local intellectual and political traditions during his political career in national and international politics.

I am currently working on an international collaborative research project on Religion and Development which is funded by DfID and based at the University of Birmingham. With partners in Nigeria, Tanzania, Pakistan, India and other UK universities, we investigate the relationship between religion, politics and selected aspects of development. My own work for this project focuses on religion, governance and corruption in Nigeria (www.rad.bham.ac.uk)

I provide regular advice as a Nigeria country expert to Refugee and Migrant Justice (formerly Refugee Legal Centre) and have worked as an academic consultant for businesses and development agencies active in Nigeria, including Cadbury Schweppes Plc, DfID, USAID and Winrock

Books

• 2010 (USA edition). Obafemi Awolowo and the Making of Remo: The Local Politics of a Nigerian Nationalist, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 296 pp., ISBN 1-59221-756-7.
• 2009. Obafemi Awolowo and the Making of Remo: The Local Politics of a Nigerian Nationalist, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International Africa Institute, 296 pp., ISBN 9780748638956.

Articles in Scholarly Journals

• 2008, “‘Without Women, Nothing Can Succeed’: Yoruba women in the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Nigeria”, Africa 78 (1), 84-106.
• 2007, “Ethnic Vigilantes and the State: The Oodua People’s Congress in southwestern Nigeria”, International Relations 21 (2), 217-235.
• 2005, “Identidade e violência: a política de juventude em Ijebu-Remo, Nigéria” in Revista Imaginário (Brazil) XI (11), 47-90. (Expanded translation of the 2004 article, with added images.)
• 2004,  “Identity and Violence: The Politics of Youth in Ijebu-Remo, Nigeria” in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 42 (1), 61-89.
• 2002, “Chieftaincy and the State in Abacha’s Nigeria: Kingship, Political Rivalry and Competing Histories in Abeokuta during the 1990s”, in Africa 72 (3), 46-89
• 2002, “Federalism and Communal Conflict in Nigeria”, in Journal of Regional and Federal Studies 12 (1), 171-192.
• 2001, “Traditionelle Herrscher im modernen afrikanischen Staat: Das Beispiel Ijebu Remo in Nigerien” (“Traditional Rulers in the Modern African State: A Case Study of Ijebu Remo, Nigeria”) in Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte (Germany) 2 (2), 109-133.

Contributions to Edited Books

• 2011 (forthcoming). “Religion, Development and Politics in Nigeria: Religious groups between shared concern and competition” in Singh, Gurharpal and Heather Marquette (eds), Religion, Politics and Governance in Asia and Africa, Routledge.
• 2007. “Chieftainships” in John Middleton (ed.), New Encyclopedia of Africa, Detroit Charles Scribner’s Sons, 173-176.
• 2005. “Cultural Politics and Nationalist History: A Background to Wole Soyinka’s Ìsarà” in T. Falola (ed.), Christianity and Social Change in Africa: Essays In Honor of John Peel, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 209-232.
• 2005. with K. N. Amherd, “Religions (West Africa)” in D. Johnson et al. (eds), Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures, Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 422-428.
• 2003. “Obas and Party Politics: The Emergence of a Postcolonial Political Identity in Ijebu-Remo, 1948-1966” in O. Vaughan (ed.), Indigenous Structures & Governance in Nigeria, Ibadan, Nigeria: Bookcraft Press, 131-167.
• 2003. “Negotiating Party Politics and Traditional Authority: Obafemi Awolowo in Ijebu-Remo, Nigeria, 1949-1955” in W. van Binsbergen (ed.), The Dynamics of Power and the Rule of Law, Münster, Germany: LIT Verlag, 51-67.

Working Papers

• 2010. with Nathaniel Danjibo and Oladeji Abubakar. “Religion, Politics and Governance in Nigeria”, Religions and Development Working Paper No 39, published by the International Development Department of the University of Birmingham for the Department for International Development (DfID), 109 pp., ISBN 0 7044 2777 X and 9780 7044 2777 8.  

Policy Briefs

• with N. Danjibo and O. Abubakar 2010. “Religion, Politics and Governance in Nigeria”, Religions and Development Policy Brief 7, University of Birmingham for the Department for International Development (DfID)

Book Reviews

• 2010. Journal of African History. “An Exploration of Nigeria’s Violent Colonial Past”. Review of Colonialism and Violence in Nigeria by Toyin Falola.
• 2010. Bulletin of SOAS. Review of Yoruba Women, Work, and Social Change by Marjorie Keniston McIntosh.
• 2010. H-Africa, H-Net Reviews. “No Innocent Detail: Exploring the Man-Leopard Murders of Southeast Nigeria”. Review of The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria by David Pratten.  
• 2010 Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. Review of Religion in Development by Severine Deneulin with Masooda Bano.
• 2009. Social History of Alcohol and Drugs. Review of The King of Drinks. Schnapps Gin from Modernity to Tradition by Dmitri van den Bersselaar.
• 2008. Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale. Review of A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria, by Dan J Smith.
• 2008. Africa. Review of Yoruba Identity and Power Politics by Toyin Falola and Ann Genova (eds).
• 2006, African Affairs. Review of The Pan-African Nation: Oil and the spectacle of culture in Nigeria, by Andrew Apter.
• 2003, African Studies Quarterly. Review of Money Struggles and City Life: Devaluation in Ibadan and Other Urban Centers in Southern Nigeria, 1986-1996 by Jane Guyer, LaRay Denzer and Adigun Agbaje (eds).
• 2002, Journal of Commonwealth History. Review of Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria by Rotimi T. Suberu