Background

Land is rarely only land. It is at once a livelihood, a marker of identity and, not infrequently, the object of protracted dispute. Surv. Dr. Akibu Abdulai has built his academic and professional career at precisely that intersection.

A chartered surveyor, land economist and regulatory governance practitioner, he holds a Ph.D. in Law (Natural Resources Governance and Environmental Health and Safety) and an LL.M. in Oil and Gas Law, both from the University of Aberdeen, together with a BSc. in Land Economy from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and a Professional Diploma from the Ghana Institution of Surveyors. The combination allows him to examine questions of title, mineral licensing and customary authority within a single analytical frame — a perspective that runs through both his teaching and his applied research.

At the University for Development Studies, he teaches land, environment and natural resource law, environmental health and safety, and land conflict management at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He came to the academic ranks after eighteen years in the University’s estate management function, which he ultimately headed as Head of Estates — an institutional grounding that continues to inform his work on public land holdings and university governance.

His teaching is anchored in sustained field and policy engagement. He has served as national land tenure expert on European Union-funded peace and security programming, as Research and Mediation Consultant to the European External Action Service, and as a training facilitator for the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives’ Littorals Regional Initiative — undertaking shuttle mediation in conflict-affected localities including Bawku, Bongo and Ejura, and training traditional authorities and Customary Land Secretariats in responsible land tenure governance across Ghana’s five northern regions. He has most recently advised the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)/SKABOWA Project on farmer–herder relations along the Ghana–Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire corridor.

Most recently he coordinated Coginta’s Gold for Good Baseline Study Series: Diagnostic Assessment of Governance, Security and Conflict Risks in ASM Zones in the West Gonja, Bole and Sawla-Tuna-Kalba Districts (Savannah Region); Socio-Economic Profiling and Mapping of ASM Sites in the West Gonja, Bole and Sawla-Tuna-Kalba Districts (Savannah Region); and Ecological and Health Risk Assessment of ASM Sites and Identification of “No-Go” Areas in the West Gonja, Bole and Sawla-Tuna-Kalba Districts (Savannah Region). Together the three studies form the evidence base for how a mining frontier is governed, who it enriches, and what it leaves behind.

His expertise is increasingly drawn upon at the national level. In March 2025 he was appointed to the committee constituted to review the public–private partnership agreements of the Ministry of the Interior and its agencies, examining the contractual arrangements through which the State shares its security and service infrastructure with private operators. He is also Secretary of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors, Northern Region.

Research interests: customary land tenure · natural resource and extractives governance · artisanal and small-scale mining governance · land-related conflict and violent extremism · environmental health and safety law · university governance.

Phone: +233242801459
Email: aakibu@uds.edu.gh