Professor Amadu Sesay is a foundation Member of the Board of Trustees of SIRA. He was educated at the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE. He graduated with B.Sc. and PhD degrees in International Relations in 1974 and 1978 respectively. He taught in the Department of International Relations, University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, from 1978 to 2013 and was appointed Professor of International Relations in October 1991. He headed the same Department from 1992 to1994 and from 2000 to 2006. Professor Sesay is the pioneer occupant of the esteemed Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) Professor of Integration in Africa, Chair, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Lagos, from 2010-2012. He moved to the Centre for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ilorin, Nigeria, in August 2013 as Professor of International Relations, Peace and Strategic Studies. While in Ilorin, he taught successive graduates of the then ISS, now NISS, EIMC Programmes during their three months at the Centre, and took two Courses with them; Peace Support Operations; Small Arms and Light Weapons Proliferation, Control and Disarmament, Contemporary Strategic Studies, African Security Analysis and Governance and Conflict in Africa.

Professor Sesay’s areas of specialization and research interests include; International Relations and Foreign Policy, Security and Conflict Studies, African Politics and Government, Peace Support Operations and Human Security. In December 2006, he was unanimously chosen out of 500 applicants region-wide as Official ECOWAS Historian to write the ECOMOG Book, covering the Operations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau. He spent the next four years conducting extensive field work and in the process, he had extensive interviews with key government officials and stakeholders in the conflicts and civil wars in Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Ghana. He also met some of the ECOMOG Field Commanders including Generals Arnold Quainoo, Adetunji Olurin and Victor Malu, former fighters as well victims of the ‘uncivil’ wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The result is a 447- page book manuscript titled: Fighting Bush Fires: ECOWAS and Peacemaking in West Africa, which is soon to be published by ECOWAS. He was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Bordeaux, France, in 2006, to revive the declining interest in African Studies among French, America, Canadian and European Students. Out of 112 students that registered for the Course on Regionalism, Regionalisation and Conflict in West Africa, 92 stayed on to take the final exams at the end of the Semester for which he received Commendation from the Department.

Professor Sesay has 20 books and 7 monographs to his credit. He has also published numerous Book Chapters and articles in Learned Journals on African Politics, Foreign Policy, Security, Conflict Analysis, Peacekeeping, and Peace Support Operations especially in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau. His latest books are; African Perspectives on EU/ACP Relations (co-edited) Lagos: NIIA (2020) and Nigeria’s Contemporary Security Challenges (co-edited) Essays in Honour of A. A. Gadzama, Abuja: NISS (2021). He has been Editor-in-Chief of several peer reviewed journals and he is a member of Editorial Boards of several Journals in Nigeria and abroad. He was Editor-in-Chief of CentrePoint Humanities one of the University of Ilorin’s Senate Journals for five years. He joined the National Institute for Security Studies, NISS, in October, 2019. He holds the traditional chieftaincy title of Baaluwe of Idanreland in Ondo State.