About
I am a Nigerian researcher, playwright, theatre producer and director. My doctorate is in International Relations at the School of International Service at American University. The work is about protection: what Nigeria has committed to for women during and after the conflict in the northeast, and what those commitments have been worth to the women living through it.
I write and direct for the stage, and I produce. I founded Sabi Arts in 2018 and have made work through it since, plays about sex work, religion, autonomy, work and violence in contemporary Nigerian life. The plays are asking the same questions as the research.
Alongside the dissertation I am a Doctoral Fellow with the Institute on Disability and Public Policy, where I work on disability rights and the CRPD, and I work on women’s rights and gender-based violence. I also run an education support initiative that covers exam fees and school materials for children in Port Harcourt.
The research and the plays started separately and stopped being separate somewhere along the way. Back For Ground was about a woman trying to get out of sex work and into an education, and the questions it raised, who is protected, who decides, what a promise of protection is actually worth, were the same ones I kept meeting in the policy literature on Nigeria’s National Action Plans. The state produces a great deal of language about protecting women. Some of it is sincere. Very little of it is ever audited. That gap is what I work on now, in both forms. Research lets me test the claims against the outcomes. Theatre lets me put an audience in a room with the person the claims are supposedly about. Neither one substitutes for the other.
Education
PhD, International Relations
School of International Service, American University
In progressMSc, International Relations and Diplomacy
Baze University
Dissertation: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and the Security of Women in Nigeria’s Boko Haram Conflict, 2009 to 2023
DistinctionCommendation for dissertation excellenceBSc, International Law and Diplomacy
Babcock University
Bio
For programmes, panels and press
Ibi Kontein is a Nigerian researcher, playwright, theatre producer and director.
She is completing a PhD in International Relations at the School of International Service at American University. Her research examines the distance between Nigeria’s stated commitments to women in conflict and the security outcomes women actually experience. She works across state protection rhetoric, gender and security, political legitimacy and post-conflict governance, combining discourse analysis of policy and political texts with quantitative analysis of security and development outcomes. Her paper Performing Protection: State Gender Rhetoric and Women’s Rights in Nigeria is being presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Boston in September 2026.
She founded Sabi Arts Limited in 2018 and writes, directs and produces through it. The company stages plays about the parts of contemporary Nigerian life that usually go undiscussed: sex work, religion, autonomy, work, violence and the expectations placed on women. Back For Ground, first staged in 2022 and revived at the MUSON Centre in Lagos in 2025, follows a young woman trying to leave sex work for an education. Dear Applicant, a satire on job-seeking, had its UK debut at Theatre Peckham in 2025. Her work has been staged in Lagos, Ogun, Port Harcourt, London and Edinburgh.
Alongside the dissertation she is a Doctoral Fellow at American University’s Institute on Disability and Public Policy, where she works on disability rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and took part in the 19th Conference of States Parties at the United Nations in 2026. She is also a Student Fellow at the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology, and works on women’s rights and gender-based violence. She runs an education support initiative covering exam fees and school materials for children in Port Harcourt.
She holds an MSc in International Relations and Diplomacy from Baze University, awarded with distinction, and a BSc in International Law and Diplomacy from Babcock University.
Reading
I am on a quest to read an author from every country around the world, Books From Around The World. Come around the world with me? That and everything else I read lives at Ibi's Book Corner ↗, which is mostly just me and my book-pinions. One year it came to over seventy books (yes, I read them all).
Also check out my irregular musings on Medium ↗. Sometimes we read, sometimes we write. After all, we are all the pages we turn.
Enquiries at hello@ibikontein.com