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Scholars

Obasesam Okoi

University of St Thomas, Minnesota

Based in

United States
North America

Obasesam Okoi is an Assistant Professor of Justice and Peace Studies and the Coordinator of Peace Engineering at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, USA. He is a recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, during which he spent the summer of 2024 engaging with local inventors, scientists, artists, environmental NGOs, government officials, farmers, professors, teachers, students, women, political leaders, and Indigenous communities to explore Tanzanian creativity and innovations in response to climate change. He also received the Charles E. Scheidt Faculty Fellowship in Atrocity Prevention at the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University, New York, where his work focused on climate change and mass atrocity prevention. Dr. Okoi’s research and expertise encompass the intersections between climate change, conflict, and forced displacement; African creativity and innovation in addressing climate challenges; environmental peacebuilding; transnational migration governance; technology and peacebuilding; and sustainability practices in the Global South. He is the author of Punctuated Peace in Nigeria’s Oil Region: Oil Insurgency and the Challenges of Post-conflict Peacebuilding (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and co-editor of Governing Natural Resources for Sustainable Peace in Africa: Environmental Justice and Conflict Resolution (Routledge, 2023).

Country(ies) of Specialty

Chad Ghana Nigeria Tanzania

Focus areas of expertise

Climate policy and politics Climate Justice Renewable energy Behavioral action

How to Connect

Publications

Articles

Okoi, Obasesam and Victoria R. Nalule, 2023. Governing Natural Resources for Sustainable Peace in Africa: Environmental Justice and Conflict Resolution. Abingdon, Oxfordshire Routledge.

Okoi, Obasesam, 2021. Punctuated Peace in Nigeria’s Oil Region: Oil Insurgency and the Challenges of Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Okoi, Obasesam, “The Challenge and Promise of Transforming Youth Insurgency in Nigeria’s Oil Region.” In Building Sustainable Peace with and For Young People: Examining Evidence, Trends, and Challenges, ed. Siobhan McEvoy-Levy, Helen Bennet, and Catherin Bolten. Manchester University Press (Invited).

Okoi, Obasesam, 2023. “Natural Resource Governance and Sustainable Peace in Africa – A Theoretical Analysis.” In Governing Natural Resources for Sustainable Peace in Africa: Environmental Justice and Conflict Resolution, edited by Obasesam Okoi and Victoria R. Nalule. Abingdon, Oxfordshire Routledge.

Victoria R. Nalule and Obasesam Okoi, 2023. Conclusion: Ensuring a Peaceful Africa Based on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. In Governing Natural Resources for Sustainable Peace in Africa: Environmental Justice and Conflict Resolution, edited by Obasesam Okoi and Victoria R. Nalule. Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Routledge.

Okoi, Obasesam, 2023. “Introduction: Natural Resource Governance and Conflicts in Africa in Context.” In Governing Natural Resources for Sustainable Peace in Africa: Environmental Justice and Conflict Resolution, edited by Obasesam Okoi and Victoria R. Nalule. Abingdon, Oxfordshire Routledge.

Okoi, Obasesam and Temitpe B. Oriola. 2022. “Insurgency and Organised Violence in Africa—A Cross-National Approach.” In Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Africa, pp. C24.S1–C24.S8, edited by R. Sooryamoorthy and Ernest Khalema. Oxford University Press. (Invited).

Okoi, Obasesam, 2021. “The Responsibility to Defend? Boko Haram Terrorism and
Responses to Terror-Induced Displacement in Northeast Nigeria.” In Boko Haram’s Campaign of Terror in the Lake Chad: Context, Dimensions and Future Trajectories, pp. 103-123, edited by Temitope B. Oriola, Freedom Onuoha, and Samuel Oyewole (Routledge).

Okoi, Obasesam, 2020. Review of Michael D. Beevers Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Governance After Armed Conflict: Sierra Leone and Liberia. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) in Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 32(1): 568-571. doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2019.1800949

Okoi, Obasesam, 2022. From Insurgents to Entrepreneurs: Between Stability and Sustainable Peace in Nigeria’s Oil Region. Peace Research: The Canadian Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies 54(1): 1-24.

Okoi, Obasesam, 2019. “Peacebuilding and Transformational Change in Nigeria’s Oil Region.” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 19(1): 1–16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21270.

Okoi, Obasesam, 2016. “Why Nations Fight: The Causes of the Nigeria-Cameroon Bakassi Peninsula Conflict.” African Security 9(1): 42-61.

Okoi, Obasesam 2019. “The Paradox of Nigeria’s Oil Dependency.” Africa Portal, Center for International Governance Innovations (CIGI)/South Africa Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA).