Professor Usman Tar (PhD) Professor of Political Science and Defence Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy. Prof Tar is also the Director of the Academy’s Centre for Defence Studies and Documentation. Prof Tar is a Member of the Board of Social Science Research Council’s African Peacebuilding Network (SSRC/APN), New York, USA. He was formerly Associate Research Fellow at John and Elnora Ferguson Centre for Africa Studies (JEFCAS), University of Bradford, UK. He was also an Assistant Professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations and Director of Postgraduate Studies at the University of Kurdistan-Hewler, Northern Iraq.
Prof Tar is the author of The Politics of Neoliberal Democracy in Africa (London/New York: IB Tauris, 2009); Editor of Globalization in Africa: Perspectives on Development, Security, and the Environment (Lexington Books, Lanham MD, USA; and Editor, Defence Transformation and the Consolidation of Democracy in Nigeria (Kaduna: Academy Publishers, 2018). His forthcoming work include The Routledge Handbook of Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency in Africa (Routledge, London); The New Architecture for Regional Security in Africa (Lexington Books, (Lanham, MD, USA) and The Palgrave Handbook of Small Arms and Conflict in Africa (Palgrave-Macmillan, London). Prof Tar has consulted or consults for several organisations including the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD, Nigeria), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, Nigeria) and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (German Development Fund). He has also served as visiting professor and external examiner to several institutions of higher learning in Nigeria.