Biography

I developed an interest in informality during my postgraduate studies in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. In contemporary development discourses, informality is invariably connected to free riding, low tax-to-GDP ratio, little or no accountability, and the underprovision of public goods. This discourse is even more pervasive in much of the Global South where the growth of formal cities is juxtaposed with skyrocketing informal settlements and economies. During my PhD in Development Studies, I will ethnographically assess the veracity of the hegemonic discourses on informality focusing on the specific case of Nigeria―Africa’s largest economy but also, paradoxically, the state with one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in Africa and in the world at only 6 percent. As a man of ideas, I strongly believe that education and research are conducive to social, moral, and political revolutions. I am confident that my research will inform policy interventions given the functional holes in Nigeria’s labile taxation system. I am profoundly honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge scholarly community.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Social Anthropology 2020
Central European University (Budapest College) Political Science 2019