Aniekwu, Nkoli

Professor Aniekwu began her academic career in December 1989 as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Public Law, University of Benin. She obtained an LL.M (Master of Laws) degree from the University of Lagos in 1995, and earned her Ph.D in Health Law from the same institution in 2009. Her doctoral dissertation received the Nigerian Universities Doctoral Theses Award (NUDTAS) of the National Universities Commission (NUC) for the best doctoral theses in Law within the Nigerian Universities System. Professor Nkoli Aniekwu is the first academic staff of the Faculty of Law, University of Benin to win the coveted national award, and the first doctoral research in Reproductive Health Law to win the NUDTAS since It’s inception.
She is a longstanding member of the Board of the Centre for Gender Studies and the Faculty’s representative on its Management Committee. Her professional affiliations include membership of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers (NALT), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), African Feminist Initiative (Pennsylvania State University, USA), Editorial Advisory Board, Nigerian Health Law and Policy Journal (NHLPJ), Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies; the Institute for African Women in Law (IAWL); and the Editorial Advisory Board, Case Law Review, Abuja.
Professor Aniekwu has supervised several research projects covering HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, human rights, feminist legal theory, cultural relativism, and African studies. She has also supervised and examined international research candidates at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), Sheffield Hallam University (UK), and the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Spain). She has been an external assessor for professorial candidates at the Universities of Abuja and Uyo, and is the first Professor of Law to teach at the African Centre of Excellence for Reproductive Health Innovation (CERHI), University of Benin.
Promoted to the rank of full Professor in April 2014, Professor Aniekwu currently teaches Legal Method and Reproductive Health Law at the Faculty of Law and CERHI, University of Benin. In 2010, she designed the LL.M elective in Reproductive Health Law, the first postgraduate course of its kind in Nigerian universities, targeting law and non-law graduates, medical personnel, non-governmental organisations and researchers in AIDS, health systems, and LGBTQ studies.
Professor Aniekwu has published more than sixty articles, conference papers, and textbooks on legal research methodologies, postcolonial feminist theories, cultural relativism, African studies, reproductive health, and human rights.
Professor Aniekwu was the first Professor from West Africa to teach at the Master’s Programme of the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL), Oñati, Spain (2013/2014). Other international engagements include Visiting Scholarships at the Center for Law, Science and Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2015); Emory Law School, Georgia, USA (2017); and the Africana Studies Institute, University of Connecticut, USA (2019). Professor Aniekwu held the Martin Flynn Global Law Chair, University of Connecticut Law School, Hartford, USA from 2018 to 2020, and was nominated for the Global South Feminist Scholar Award in 2022. She is a past Visiting Professor at the Departments of Communication and Media Studies (CMS) and the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Fordham University, New York (2022, 2023). She Is also a past Visiting Professor and examiner on African Perspectives of Cultural Relativism and Reproductive Rights at the IISL, Spain (2024).
Professor Aniekwu is currently ranked the most cited academic staff member in the Faculty of Law, University of Benin, Nigeria, by the AD Scientific Index (UK, 2025).
Area(s) of expertise: Reproductive Rights, African Studies