A claim of an Iroko tree stature has been made for Professor Abubakar Momoh who was, till his death last night, the pioneer Director of The Electoral Institute, the research arm of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC). How do the facts square up? There is a much longer and more comprehensive resume but Prof Momoh is also laid bare in this bio-data extracted from www.Africanleadershipcentre.org with slight editing:
Abubakar Momoh is Professor of Political Science and until his death, the Director-General of The Electoral Institute at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Until his appointment, Professor Momoh was the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Lagos State University (LASU).
Momoh obtained his Ph.D in Political Theory and started his Lecturing career in 1988. He has served on various Boards and scientific committees including those of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). He was Vice President of African Association of Political Science (AAPS). He was also the National Treasurer, Academic Staff Union of Universities (1991-1995).
Momoh has been a researcher and lecturer at many universities across the world, including being Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland; Fellow, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden; Visiting Scholar, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa; Guest Researcher, Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden; Guest Lecturer, Summer Course on African Law, Catholic University, Brussels, Belgium; Senior Fulbright Scholar, James Coleman African Studies Centre, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Guest Lecturer, African and African-American Studies Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA; Visiting Researcher and Tutor, Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG), King’s College of the University of London and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, International Development Centre, Open University, Milton Keynes, England. He was also Post Graduate Research Supervisor, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld in Germany, among others.
Momoh has served as External Examiner to the University of Lagos, University of Ibadan and University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. He has also been External Examiner to the Nigerian Defence College (NDC) since 2005.
Momoh has also served on several government technical committees including being member and coordinator of “Foreign Policy” Subcommittee of Federal Republic of Nigeria “Vision 20:20” Technical Committee; he was also a member of the team that drafted the policy on “Peace Support Operations (PSOS) for the Federal Government.
Professor Momoh has also been on several technical teams of the African Union Commission (AUC), and most recently was involved in designing the African Governance Architecture (AGA) and Elections Bench-marking for the African Union. He has also served as election Observer to several African countries on behalf of ECOWAS and African Union. He has also served as Election Observer to some European countries.
