Our team

Eze Onyekpere is a lawyer with specialisation in development law including fiscal governance, freedom of information, anti-corruption, extractive industries, political finance, gender and exclusion, human rights and constitutional reforms. Over the last thirty-four years, he has worked on electric power sector reforms, privatisation, gender and trade policy and liberalisation of education.  Eze has tremendous experience in the area of public finance management reforms involving fiscal and legal issues and economic governance. The assignments undertaken include drafting of laws, policies, manuals and guides; research and capacity building in fiscal responsibility, procurement, debt and audit reforms, budget analysis, etc.

He has also worked on economic and social rights including the rights to education, health, housing, and social security.  Eze has led debates on the constitution reform process on the minimum core obligation(s) of the state in economic and social rights and fiscal challenges in a federal system. He has also worked on economic policy and legal issues for poverty reduction in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy and the Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy.

He is a leading campaign finance expert in Nigeria and has worked on campaign finance law and policy reform, monitoring of campaign finance in elections, review of regulations, capacity building and training of officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission as well as civil society monitors.

Eze has led the facilitation of many human rights training sessions and human rights assessment missions as well gender audit of institutions including political parties in Nigeria. He contributed immensely to the redrafting and review of Violence Against Persons Prohibition Laws in Adamawa and Sokoto states. He is also versed in election dispute resolution mechanisms having monitored and published reports on judicial resolution of election disputes over two election cycles in 2011 and 2015.

He has authored over fifty publications and over six hundred and fifty published media articles. He served on the Editorial Board of the Independent newspaper and currently writes a weekly column every Monday in the Punch Newspaper. He is faculty member of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy.

Janefrancis Ijeoma Duru, is a development specialist with interest in gender, health and the environment. With over 28 years’ experience in human resources, leadership, communication, gender, health, entrepreneurship development, business advisory, environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and consulting services.

A 2011 graduate of Social Sector Management (SSM3) of Enterprise Development Centre, Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, Janefrancis holds a B.A. Ed degree; Master’s and a Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Public Administration specializing in Human Resources, all from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She received the Council for the Development of Economics and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) award for her Master’s Thesis – Management of Communication Problems in Organisations.

She consults for international development agencies including WHO, UNDP, EU, UNICEF, the Federal Ministry of Environment and other organisations. She has published several articles on gender, reproductive health, safe motherhood, HIV/AIDS, Gender-based Violence, human resource management, etc in reputable journals, online websites and national newspapers. Many of her books are awaiting publication. She is the Executive Director, Gender Care Initiative (GCI) an NGO that promotes the empowerment of women and young people and a Lead Director of Alexel Ltd, a HR and General Management Firm. She is happily married.

Uzochukwu Amakom holds a Ph.D. in Economics with strong background in Applied Statistics. He is currently the Senior Public Financial Management Expert (SPFME) to the World Bank funded State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme for the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) Secretariat. He is on a leave of Absence from the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus where he is a Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Development Studies (IDS). He has been a Visiting Research Fellow to the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), University of Oxford, Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM and the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (UN-IDEP), Dakar, SENEGAL. He served as the Core Adviser on Public Financial Management (PFM) for the DFID funded State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI) and a short-term Consultant on Public Financial Management (PFM) and Service Delivery to DFID funded Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) programme for the period 2011-2020. He has over 18 years’ experience in Public Financial Management and Project Management garnered through extensive consultancies for donors organisations and International Development Partners. He has over sixty (60) scholarly publications in reputable journals and books on general development issues with special emphasis on fiscal governance, poverty, gender, and income distribution. Uzochukwu has participated in over seven (7) dozen of specialised workshops, trainings, and conferences across the world and currently a member of more than 15 National and International Research Organisations.