Prof. Dr. Okorie Elijah Albert

Short Bio

Okorie Elijah Albert is a Full Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), where he has taught and conducted research since 2009. He holds a First-Class Honours BSc and an MSc and PhD, both with Distinction, from UNN. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in October 2023.

Over a sixteen-year academic career, Professor Albert has taught Comparative Politics, Research Methodology, African Politics, Electoral Studies, Human Security and Counter-Insurgency, and Political Economy, among other courses, and has supervised over fifty undergraduate and postgraduate research projects. He has held several administrative and departmental leadership roles at UNN, including Chairman of the Curriculum Committee, the Admissions Committee, and the Publications Committee, and currently chairs the University’s Committee on Community Relations. Beyond the university, he has served as Lead Researcher for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and as a consultant to Nigeria’s Presidential Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons, alongside ad-hoc electoral duties for INEC.

His current research addresses political economy, elite networks, and inequality in Nigeria, focusing on how patronage and neopatrimonial politics shape wealth concentration. He has published over forty peer-reviewed works, including in the Review of African Political Economy, on crony capitalism, resource governance, and electoral politics. His current project develops an original theoretical framework, Elitist Circulatory Accumulation (ECA), to explain how Nigeria’s political elites convert public wealth into private wealth through recurring cycles of office-holding and business patronage, with particular attention to the gendered exclusion of women and youth from these networks.

Selected Publications

• Albert, O. E., Abada, I., & Adibe, R. (2021). Crony capitalism in Nigeria: The case of patronage funding of the Peoples Democratic Party and the power sector reform, 1999-2015. Review of African Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2021.1958309
• Albert, O. E. (2018). The dominance of foreign capital and its impact on indigenous technology development in the production of liquefied natural gas in Nigeria. Review of African Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2017.1372279
• Adibe, R., Nwagwu, E., & Albert, O. E. (2017). Rentierism and security privatization in the Nigerian petroleum industry: Assessment of oil pipeline surveillance and protection contracts. Review of African Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2017.1391771
• Albert, O. E., Isife, C. T., Adibe, R., & Ifem, L. A. (2021). Political merchandization and the crisis of internal democracy in Nigeria: The case of the Peoples Democratic Party. Webology, 18(1), 2089-2112.
• Ezeibe, C., Lenshie, N. E., Albert, O., Mapiyen, B. S., & Ganiyu, A. D. (2026). Militarization of the electoral process and voter turnout in off-cycle governorship elections in Nigeria. African Security. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392206.2026.2639072

Project Description

Elitist Circulatory Accumulation: Elite Networks, Patronage and Inequality in Nigeria

Despite Nigeria’s vast mineral wealth, over 40% of its population lives in poverty, a condition rooted not in mismanagement but in a deliberate pattern of accumulation that converts public wealth into private wealth through interconnected political-business networks. This project develops an original theoretical framework, Elitist Circulatory Accumulation (ECA), synthesizing neopatrimonialism, coloniality theory, postcolonial theory, and Pareto’s elite circulation with Marxist accumulation theory, to explain how a segment of Nigeria’s political elite continuously recycles itself across strategic public offices, leveraging these positions to build business networks, accumulate wealth, and sustain future political access.

Empirically, the study traces this pattern through Nigeria’s post-1999 privatization era, including the sale of PHCN, Ajaokuta Steel, Delta Steel, ALSCON, NITEL, and the OPL 245 oil bloc transfer, alongside pension fund mismanagement and the NNPC/PIA unbundling. Using a mixed-methods design, the project will draw on documentary analysis of 37 political elites who switched positions between 1999 and 2025, key informant interviews across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, and focus group discussions with women entrepreneurs, youth organizations, and SME representatives excluded from these networks. Social Network Analysis (using Gephi) will map elite trajectories and patronage ties, complemented by qualitative thematic coding.

The project also examines how women and youth are systematically excluded from these patronage networks. By centering an African-derived analytical framework, the study aims to challenge Eurocentric neopatrimonial narratives and contribute new understanding of how elite circulation drives inequality within Nigeria and its wider global economic entanglements.

Keywords: Africa, elites, inequality, Nigeria, patronage, political economy