WAENVI JEFFA FOUNDATION - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Secretary to the University of Benin Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Mrs Elena Nikolaevna Ehiorobo holds a B.Sc. Degree in Accounting from the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, and a Diploma in Marketing.
She has worked in different private organizations as Administrative Officer. She has been serving as Director of Finance and Administration at Jeffa Geosurveys and Technical Services Ltd, a consultancy firm involved in surveying and mapping, infrastructure planning, design and management, and environmental consultancy services for over 20 years now.
She is a talented early childhood and youth manager. She has also been serving as Proprietress/Director of Elena International Group of Schools for over 10 years now. She has participated in several conferences dealing with sustainable development and the environment both locally and internationally. She is married to Prof Jacob Ehiorobo with three children
Job Titles:
- Member of the Research Team
- Professor of Economics With Specialization in Public Finance / Public Sector Economics
Dr. D.E. Oriakhi is a Professor of Economics with specialization in Public Finance/Public Sector Economics. Majority of his research outputs are focused on Public Expenditure, Taxation, Political Economy of Growth in Africa, Revenue Enhancement and Management in the Nigerian Economy amongst others.
Professor Oriakhi has participated in several World Bank, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) programmes and projects.
He has served in several academic positions, and some of these include: Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Benin; Head, Department of Economics, University of Benin; and Member, Board of Studies of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi. Prof Oriakhi is currently, the Deputy Center Leader (Procurement) of the World Bank Assisted Sustainable Procurement, Social and Environmental Standards Enhancement Center of Excellence (SPESSCE) at the University of Benin.
Prof Dickson Oriakhi is a member of the Research team that won the Tetfund National Research Grant on Flood Frequency Analysis and Watershed Management within the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. He is a member of the Nigerian Economic Society and the Nigerian Environmental Society.
Eghosa E. Osaghae holds A PhD Degree in political science from the University of Ibadan (1986), where he is a professor of political science. He was appointed director-general of the Nigerian institute of international affairs (NIIA) by the president and commander-in-chief OF the federal republic of Nigeria in march 2021, and was most recently vice chancellor of Igbinedion university, Okada, a position he held for a record period of fourteen years (2004-2018). Professor Osaghae was the 2019 Claude Ake chair At Uppsala university and Nordic Africa institute, Sweden, and a fellow OF the Stellenbosch institute of advanced studies in south Africa. He was the 2017 van Zyl slabbert professor of politics and sociology at the university of cape town and the 2014 Emeka Anyaoku chair of commonwealth studies at the university of London.
His Anyaoku chair inaugural lecture, a state of our own: second independence, federalism and the decolonization of the state in Africa, in April 2014 became the first inaugural lecture by a Nigerian in the history of the university of London. Before taking up appointment at Okada, he was leader of the Ford foundation-funded programme on ethnic and federal studies and Director of the centre for peace and conflict studies at the university of Ibadan. Between 1994 and 1998, he was professor and Head of the Department of political studies at the university of Transkei, south Africa. He has also been a visiting professor/fellow/distinguished senior scholar at the Carter centre of Emory university USA (1989), university of Liberia (1989/90), Salzburg seminar, Austria (1993), university of cape town south Africa (1994), the Nordic Africa institute, Uppsala Sweden (1994), University of Ulster, Northern Ireland (1999, 2000), Northwestern university USA (2002, 2004), University of Cambridge UK (2003), a number of universities and research institutes in India (2005, 2009), Dartmouth college USA (2005) and Yale University USA (2009).
He was a Rockefeller ‘reflections on development' Fellow (1989/90), and was most recently a MacArthur fellow. In 1996, he won the "best paper award" at the eighth annual conference of the international association for conflict management in Helsignor, Denmark. Professor Egosa Osaghae also won the "best article award for 2004" of the African politics conference group a coordinate group of the American political science association, African studies association and international studies association. The same article also won the 2004 Lawrence Dunbar Reddick memorial scholarship award for the best article on Africa published in the journal of third world studies.
Professor Osaghae served as chair of the panel on Quality Assurance assessment, united nations economic commission for Africa, 2011-2012, Chair of the pan-African working group on "building institutional effectiveness in Africa" hosted by the institute for global dialogue (south Africa) and Federal Trust Fund (UK) between 2005 and 2006, UN expert on Somalia (2010-2016), and has been a member of the technical advisory panel and network on parliaments and parliamentary institutions of the African capacity building foundation, Harare, Zimbabwe, since 2003. Between 1998 and 2004, he was Africa's representative on the steering committee of the civil society and governance project based at the IDS of the university of Sussex, UK, and between 2006 and 2010, was a member of the centre advisory review group, development research centre on citizenship, participation and accountability, which was based at the IDS, University of Sussex. He also served on the Steering Committee of the Consortium for Development Partnerships, a successful model of North-South intellectual collaboration that involved institutions from North America, Europe and Africa between 2005 and 2012.
Osaghae is a member of several learned societies and editorial boards. In 2002, he was Consultant to the African Development Bank's Country Mission to Zambia, and produced the country's Governance Profile. Between 2001 and 2003, he was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Political Affairs in Nigeria, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Nigeria Development Forum. He has consulted for the USAID, DFID, UNDP, and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), and is Founder and Chair of the Governing Board of the Community Relations and Conflict Resolution Centre in Ibadan.
Professor Osaghae has published extensively on governance, state politics and globalization in books and journals, and attended over 300 conferences, workshops and seminars in different parts of North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Amongst his books are Federal Character and Federalism in Nigeria (1989), which he edited with Professor Peter Ekeh, Between State and Civil Society in Africa (1994), Ethnicity, Class and State Power in Liberia (1995), Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence (1998), Researching Conflict in Africa: Insights and Experiences (2005), a co-edited book published by the United Nations University Press, and Federal a Solutions to State Failure in Africa (2020). In addition, he has published well over 150 articles in books and learned international journals.
Prof. Godwin Chukwunede Ovuworie has been a Sloan's Foundation Scholar and a Professor of Operation Research, Industrial and system Engineering in the Department of Production Engineering before his retirement in 2019. Born on November 16, 1949, he attended Igbobi College and the Federal School of Science, Lagos. In 1969, he left for the U.S.A to Berea College, for Bachelor's degree in Mathematics (major), with physics (minor) on tuition scholarship from the College. With prestigious Sloan's Foundation Fellowship, he obtained an M.Eng. degree in System Engineering at Howard University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) awarded him a scholarship for a certificate in Analyses of Urban Service Systems. At the George Washington University, he obtained a Masters of Science. degree in Operation Research and Industrial Engineering Systems. Then sojourned briefly at the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology before proceeding to the Royal Holloway College, University of London for Ph.D. degree in Operational Research certificate in Tertiary Teaching from Robert Gordon University, Scotland.
He has supervised numerous Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. degree/theses in Mathematics, Computer Science, Nursing, Business Administration, Civil Engineering and Industrial/Production Engineering. He has produced about the largest number of Ph.D.'s as academic staff of the Faculty of Engineering where he started his career as an assistant lecturer on July 1, 1975.
He developed a system of minimizing loss of documents in transit for the Pathology Department of Freedman's Hospital at Howard University Medical School. At the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering, he developed the effluent limitation guidelines for 39 industries in the U.S for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As a consultant for President Nixon's Project Independence, he estimated the manpower requirement in the coal industry. In the UK, he produced headway distribution model for gap acceptance to reduce accidents at priority-controlled junctions, under contract to the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. He joined Professor Asalor and Onibere (then young doctors) to setup the large-Scale Systems Research Group as a platform/outfit to address a number of crippling National problems in communication, military logistics, and road traffic accidents, among others. A proposal earlier sent to president Shagari, but later approved and awarded to the Group by the Buhari-Idiagbon military regime, resulted in the establishment of Federal Road Safety Commission.
He has served as HOD Production Engineering, University of Benin, HOD Mathematical Sciences, Bendel State University and more recently, Dean of the Maritime Transport and Logistics Management, Nigerian Maritime University. He has also served as the pioneer manager, Consultancy Service Unit, Director Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Office (IPTTO) and Director of Research, the Large-Scale Systems Research Group. He has also served as either chairman or member of major committees and boards.
He was a consultant to Shell on the prestigious (SITP) and NNPC on the famous FSTP. He initiated the First International Sensitization Workshop on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer for Nigerian Vice-Chancellors and other stakeholders jointly organized by the NUC, IPTTO-UNIBEN, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), having Mr. Geoffery Onyeama, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, as a focal point.
He is happily married to Mrs. Nkemodilim Monica Ovuworie and they are blessed with six children.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Founder
- Member of the Board of Trustees
- FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN BOARD of TRUSTEES
- Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer of Jeffa Geosurveys
Prof. Jacob Odeh, Ehiorobo holds a PhD Degree in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering. He is a Professor of Applied Geomatics, Water Resources and Environmental System Engineering. He joined the University of Benin, Department of Civil Engineering on transfer f rom Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, as Lecturer 1 in 1991 and rose through the ranks to the position of Professor. He is a Fellow/Member of several professional bodies amongst which are;
Prof Osadolor Christopher Izinyon is currently a Professor of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering and the Deputy Center Leader (Environmental Standards) of the World Bank Assisted Sustainable Procurement, Social and Environmental Standard Enhancement Center of Excellence (SPESSCE) at the University of Benin. Prof. O. C. Izinyon has attended several post-doctoral trainings including UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft Netherlands 2015, Weitz CENTRE for Sustainable Development, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel and many others.
He has authored and co-authored over eighty (80) publications, in local, National and International peer review journals, conference proceedings. He is scientific officer for the EU - NEPAD Network of Center of Excellence University of Benin COE.
He is a COREN Registered Engineer and a member of several professional bodies amongst which are:
Prof O.C. Izinyon is married with children and he is a Jerusalem pilgrim.
Prof. J.O Ehiorobo was Assistant Dean, Faculty of Engineering, University of Benin between 2004 and 2008, Pioneer Faculty Coordinator/Dean Faculty of Environmental Sciences (2014 2018), and the Deputy Vice Chancellor Administration, University of Benin (2017-2019). He is Managing Editor of the Journal of Civil and Environmental Systems Engineering and Editor-in-Chief of the Nigerian Journal of Environmental Sciences and Technology (NIJEST).
Prof. J.O Ehiorobo has supervised many students at Undergraduate level, and over a 100 students at Master's and PhD levels in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Highway and Transportation Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering as well as Geomatics Engineering in the department of Civil Engineering, University of Benin from where he retired in June 2020 but still assisting the University in the Supervision of Post-Graduate Students Pro Bono. He has been an active member and Technical Coordinator of the European Commission/NEPAD Centre of Excellence in Water Science and Technology Research Group for West Africa (UNIBEN CoE) and also lead Researcher for the National TETFUND Award Research Project on "Flood forecasting and Integrated Watershed Management within the Niger Delta Region".
In 2016, he was appointed Research expert Consultant by the European Commission (Joint Research Centre) as special Consultant on Research in Water, Energy Food and Environment (WEFE) NEXUS Assessment in South-western Nigeria as part of the EU-NEPAD African Network of Centres of Excellence Research Project and this he successfully executed with his team. Professor J.O Ehiorobo is a recipient of several awards including the Distinguished Leadership in National Development Gold Award by Corporate and Media communications Limited, Meritorious Service Award by the Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers, NICE and has been listed twice in the Book of "Who is Who in Civil Engineering in Nigeria" 2018 & 2020. He has served as guest speaker/ Lecturer at various events organized by various professional bodies both at the State and National levels in the past.
Professor Jacob Odeh Ehiorobo is currently the managing Director/chief executive Officer of Jeffa Geosurveys and Technical Services Ltd. He is Founder and Chairman, Board of Trustees of WAENVI JEFFA FOUNDATION, a Non-Governmental Organization established early in 2021.