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Olajide "Jide" Olagunju
Olajide
Olajide "Jide" Olagunju

  • Ph.D. in Anthropology, Selinus University

  • MA in Anthropology, Brandels University

  • MA in Coexistence & Conflict, Brandels University

  • CYLC (LL.M), University of London; BL, Nigerian Law School; and LL.B, Obafemi Awolowo University.

Professional Experience: Dr. Olagunju is multilingual in English, French, and Yoruba. He is a lawyer, arbitrator, mediator, anthropologist and educationist, and has, for over twenty-six years, studied peace and conflict under various auspices and institutions including Harvard University Program on Negotiation (PON), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brandeis University, Tufts University, University of London, University of Bradford, ASPR-Stadtschlaining and the US State Department. He had earlier done undergraduate studies in Philosophy in Kinshasa. In 1995, Jide pioneered the professional practice of conflict mediation in Nigeria where his first book, Commercial Mediation (1998), was made a law school textbook in the year of publication. He established the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Studies Program at Salem University in 2011. His counsel as a federal Special Adviser (Labour and Conflict Management) to Nigeria’s Minister of State for electricity resolved the conflict preventing the privatization of electricity production and distribution in the country in 2012. Jide has also served as a consultant to the country’s government under the auspices of Open Society Initiative of West Africa (OSIWA): he trained several beleaguered (‘herder-farmer’) community leaders in conflict resolution between 2019 and 2020. As consultant to the World Bank, he collaborated with the Consensus Building Institute Massachusetts to train Government of Lagos State’s lawyers in conflict mediation in 2007. He has provided the same training for several other government justice departments since 1999. Similarly, he has consulted for the United Nations to provide conflict resolution training in Monrovia for various Liberian justice sector stakeholders under the auspices of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).