Dr Omobolaji Olarinmoye has joined the GEG Team as an Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow and currently located at Niehaus Center for Globalisation and Governance, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, New Jersey. His areas of specialization are: Comparative Politics, African Politics/ Nigerian Government and Politics, Social Science Research Training Management in Africa, South-South Research Training in Social Sciences, Development Studies and Peacekeeping/Post conflict peace-building. Before joining GEG, Dr Olarinmoye was programme coordinator, South-South Research Exchange Programme on History of Development, SEPHIS in the office of the Executive Secretary, CODESRIA Secretariat, Dakar and programmes manager in the Training, Grants and Fellowship programme of CODESRIA with specific responsibility for Africa Capacity Building Foundation funded programmes of CODESRIA. He was lecturer in Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Nigeria (2006-2007), Cadbury Fellow at the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham (2006), SEPHIS doctoral fellow at the Center for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, India (2004) and Programme on Ethnic and Federal Studies doctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan (2004-2005)

Nigerian and political scientist, Dr Olarinmoye holds a doctorate in Comparative Politics from the University of Ibadan (2007), an M. Phil/D.E.A in African Politics from the Institut d’ etudes Politique /Centre d’études d’Afrique Noire, Bordeaux (2001), an M.sc (1998) and B.sc (1996) in Political Science from University of Ibadan. Dr Olarinmoye doctorate thesis on the “ Politics of Ethnic Mobilization Amongst the Yoruba of South-western Nigeria was awarded the first Oyeleye Oyediran Best Thesis Prize in Nigerian Politics and Government from the Department of Political Science University of Ibadan (2007). His M.Phil/ D.E.A dissertation titled Programme RECAMP: La Nouvelle Politique de Coopération Militaire Française en Afrique Noire focused on France’s Post-Cold War Military Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

He has also been a recipient of international awards such as Mineral Economics and Management Society /Thomas Torries Research Paper Award, April 2008. Paper title: Politics does Matter: The Nigerian State & Oil (resource) Curse, Letter of Commendation for Academic Excellence from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academics, University of Ibadan, March 2006, the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE), University of Oxford research grant (2006), Commended Paper, International Sociological Association, December 2005, Institut Français de Recherché en Afrique doctoral Field work research grant (2004) and Government of France Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies in France, April.2000 -Sept.2001

At GEG, Dr Olarinmoye will be working on Accountability in International Development: A Study of Faith-based Development Organisations in Nigeria. He speaks and understands French, English and Yoruba.