By Abdulai Bayraytay, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leonean born-academic, Zubairu Wai (aka Zuba) has again made history in the field of academia. Merely four years after completing his doctoral studies and joining the Department of Political Science at one of Canada’s prestigious tertiary institutions, Lakehead University located in Thunder Bay, Northern Ontario, he has been tenured and promoted to Associate Professor.
Dr Wai’s tenure and promotion is the result of his contributions in the areas of teaching, research and service. In the area of teaching, he has rapidly established himself an effective and excellent teacher at Lakehead, which is attested to by the fact that Zuba was the sole recipient of the 2013 Lakehead University’s Contribution to Teaching Award, which is awarded to outstanding professors at the University for their Excellence in teaching.
Dr. Wai’s recognition as a serious scholar is not just limited to his pedagogical expertise which is grounded in a set of student-centred approaches, but in his immense contributions in the field of research as well. He is the proud winner of the 2013 Association of Third World Scholars’ (ATWS) Toyin Falola Africa Book Award for his outstanding book Epistemologies of African Conflicts: Violence, Evolutionism and the War in Sierra Leone (New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
The ATWS Toyin Falola Africa Book Award, in honour of Toyin Falola, one of Africa’s outstanding historians and intellectuals, is awarded to the best book annually published on Africa. Dr. Wai’s book was unanimously selected by the award committee out of a stiff competition of over 30 short-listed book submissions.
Dr Wai’s research adopts critical theory and post-colonial perspectives to address questions of power, knowledge, identity and representation in the discourses and political economy of violence, conflicts, security and development. His research interests include the epistemologies of conflict and violence; liberal peace and the politics of humanitarian interventionism in Africa; African Politics, history and systems of thought; regional integration and security regionalism in West Africa; and the politics of globalisation, democratisation and development in Africa.
Dr Wai (photo) has written extensively on conflict and democratisation in Africa, especially Sierra Leone. He is currently working on a manuscript on Africa and the contemporary Liberal Imperial World Order, the banality of violence in Africa, and an edited volume on democracy and democratisation in West Africa.
As a first rate researcher, Dr. Wai is associated with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) based in Dakar, Senegal; the International Secretariat of Human Development at York University, (Toronto), the Nordic Africa Institute (Uppsala, Sweden), the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) and the York Centre for International and Security Studies, among others.
Dr Wai joined the Department of Political Science at Lakehead University in August 2010, after completing his PhD in Political Science at York University, Toronto, four months earlier. His doctoral dissertation, ‘Interpreting Contemporary African Conflicts: Power, Knowledge and the Discourse of Violence on the Sierra Leone Civil War’ was nominated for the York Dissertation award, for its research excellence and outstanding quality.
Whilst at York, he won the Ontario Government Scholarship; the International Development Research Council’s (IDRC) Doctoral Research Award; and upon completing his doctoral studies, he was awarded the Social Science and Humanities Council (SSHRC) Post-doctoral Fellowship Award, which he turned down after he was appointed in a tenure-stream Assistant Professor position in the Department of Political Science at Lakehead University.
Dr. Wai also holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the International University of Japan (IUJ) from where he also graduated top of his class and was appointed valedictorian; and received the Dean’s Certificate for Academic Merit for his superior academic achievement at IUJ, and for writing an excellent Master’s thesis which was awarded the grade of High Distinction, the first in the history of the University.
None of this was surprising giving that he started making academic headlines in his home country of Sierra Leone from where, alongside his profound student-activism and his consistent strive for global justice and human rights, also graduated with a BA Honours degree in History from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.
When contacted via telephone in Thunder Bay about the secret behind his personal academic achievements, especially his promotion to Associate Professor in just four years after he joined Lakehead University, the usually modest Zuba simply said “it is a commitment to scholarship and research; having the opportunity to do what one enjoys and being fortunate to be in the right and supportive environment. The university, my colleagues, and especially my students, have been tremendously encouraging.”
Dr. Wai’s promotion to Associate Professor did not come as a surprise to colleagues and friends both at home and abroad. We congratulate him and wish him well in his endeavours as he continues to fly the flag of Sierra Leone high.
Dr. Zubairu Wai, one of Sierra Leone’s modest academics making headlines in Canada.
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