Opeyemi Esther Adegburin is a PhD student at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London, where her research examines green colonialism, energy justice and critical mineral governance in Sub-Saharan Africa. Distinctively, her doctoral project investigates how global energy transitions reconfigure classical dependency relations between core, semi-peripheral and peripheral economies, and what this means for national agency and sustainable development in mineral-rich Sub-Saharan African countries.

Alongside her doctoral studies, she has worked with the United Nations Environment Programme, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Economic Community of West African States, contributing to research on climate security, human rights and environmental governance.

She holds an LLM in International Law and Development from the University of Nottingham and a BA in Politics and International Relations from the University of Leicester.

Research

Thesis title: "Green Colonialism in Energy Transitions and the Scramble for Critical Minerals in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study on Nigeria"

This research examines how leadership shapes the political economy of green transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using Nigeria’s lithium sector as a case study, it analyses how green dependency and green colonialism are reproduced through critical mineral policy and global value chains. Drawing on classical dependency theory, the study explores how the evolution of core, semi-peripheral and peripheral dynamics are reconfigured in the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy systems.

Beyond structural analysis, the project integrates transformational and decolonial leadership theory to assess when state agency translates into energy justice. It argues that energy transitions are not only technological or economic processes, but leadership contests over whose knowledge, identities and development priorities prevail. By evaluating Nigeria’s mineral governance under competing strategies from China, the US and the EU, the research demonstrates how leadership practice can either entrench unequal exchange or foster accountable, inclusive and justice-oriented transitions.

PhD supervision

• Principal supervisor: Professor Ekaette Ikpe
• Secondary supervisor: Dr Clement Sefa-Nyarko