Neptune Prime’s interview with Prof Hadiza Hamma, Yobe’s youngest professor and first Harvard graduate in Development Practice
Professor Hadiza Hamma was born on March 2, 1980, in Potiskum, Yobe State, to Alhaji Adamu Hamma (Mamalzadi). She spent her early years in Lagos, where her father worked with the Nigerian Ports Authority. From childhood, she was raised with strong values of respect, humility, discipline, and devotion to Almighty Allah—principles that have guided her remarkable journey.
Her academic path began at Satellite Town Primary School and Nigerian Navy Secondary School in Lagos, where she excelled, graduating as the best student in Arts and Social Sciences in 1999. She briefly attended Central Primary School, Potiskum, in 1984.
Determined to pursue a legal career, she gained admission to the University of Abuja, where she graduated with a Second-Class Upper degree in Law in 2005. Her dedication shone through at the Nigerian Law School, where she ranked among the top five students in her class and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2006 as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
After completing her NYSC at Bayero University, Kano, she worked as a Legal Officer at the Federal Ministry of Justice before joining the University of Abuja as an Assistant Lecturer. Her thirst for knowledge pushed her further—she obtained her Master’s degree in 2011 and a PhD in 2016 in record time.
In this exclusive interview with Neptune Prime’s Aisha Musa Auyo, on the 10th of March, 2025, she talks about her career, challenges, educational system and legal educational system, woman aspiring to academic and professional excellence and more.
NP: Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Prof Hamma: My name is Professor Hadiza Hamma. I am a professor of environmental development law at the Faculty of Law, University of Abuja.
I’m particularly very interested in issues related to sustainable development and human rights law.
NP: Can you share a defining moment in your academic or professional journey?
Prof Hamma: Yes I think the defining moment for me was the time I completed my PhD, it was a very challenging period, I was heavily pregnant towards the end of my PhD and I had a deadline to submit my thesis. But because I have mentors who were encouraging me, pushing me, I was able to do that and that marked a turning point in my life because that was when I got introduced to higher levels of academics example postgraduate studies and and supervision which paved way for my elevation to associate Professor of law eventually.
NP: What challenges did you face while climbing the academic ladder, and how did you overcome them?
Prof Hamma: There were so many challenges you know for us as women, whether in the academia or anywhere else, there are a lot of challenges but in the academics I think there is an extra layer of challenges you have to go through. For example you’re required to write a lot of papers and do a lot of publications. These are things you can not do when you’re sitting in the office because you have to attend to students and you have to go to lecture rooms. You will have to use the time at home during the night, because when you get home you have to deal with the home front. There are children and a husband and extended family waiting for your attention.
Secondly, there are scenarios you face as a woman, you often find yourself been relegated in the work place whenever there are issues for determination your views are less heard and opinions of male colleagues are taken more serious.
NP: How did you overcome challenges?
Prof Hamma: I have to find a way to make a priority list that’s the first thing I did to balance the equation, and I followed it religiously. Secondly, I try to discipline myself to create time for everything and stick to the time. This helps me a lot in overcoming the challenges.
Thirdly, I listen to my mentors. They push me to work extra hard and I use to think that’s too much but at the end of the day after listening to them I got an accelerated promotion because I worked twice as hard as required. Listening to those who are more experienced at the job made me fit in and compete favourably with everyone around.
NP: Your research covers diverse areas, from environmental roles to human rights. What drives your interest in these fields?
Prof Hamma: Well, actually, there are so many things that made me interested in these areas of law. Starting from a young age, I always have allergies and related health issues. And then, as I was growing up, I realized it was an environmental factor that usually led to my own kind of allergy, and so I always thought of “what can we do to help the environment”?
Now by the time I became a lawyer I realized there are a lot you can do through the instrumentality of law and then at post graduate level when I was doing my masters for the first time I was introduced to environmental law and policy a course that was taught by one of my professors and I saw that there is still much we can do with environmental law to make the environment better because the environment not only determines what happened to the physical environment but what happens to us as human beings to our health, to everything else is surrounded by the environment.
On human rights, there are so many human rights concerns around for children, for women and everything in between so many things happens and people’s rights are been encroached and they can’t do anything about it and so my interest in human rights is because I felt there was need to give that voice to those people who needs to be heard in terms of their rights.
NP: Among your numerous achievements, which one are you most proud of and why?
Prof Hamma: Well, even though I have achieved so much academically and career wise but I think my greatest achievement is having the kind of family I have, I think that’s the greatest achievement.
I’m so happy and proud of the kind of husband and the children I have and the parents who have nurtured me from the beginning and supported me to be where I am and my wonderful siblings that’s my greatest achievement as far as I am concern my source of pride.
NP: Your book on offshore reconnection has been widely recognized. What impact do you hope it impacts on Nigeria’s oil industry?
Prof Hamma: The book is about what happened after we’ve done decades of exploration of oil and gas but there are those facilities that are usually set up offshore to facilitate that process but at the end of the life of those facilities when they’re no longer needed to continue oil exploration. What happens to those facilities is a question that is very important because those facilities, if not properly dismantled and disposed of, can create a lot of environmental forms of havoc.
The book is an attempt to what needs to be addressed in terms of those issues and in other to make sure that this offshore installations for oil and gas are properly disused and decommissioned so that those after effects for human beings, for marine environment will be avoided. And after I have written that book the petroleum industry act was enacted by the National Assembly after the book came in 2012 and then the PIA came in 2021 so some the issues I raised in the book were actually captured by the law that came out later. This means my contribution in that aspect was a meaningful one however, there are one or two issues that need to be addressed, and I believe if we continue to raise the awareness, maybe some amendments can come into the PIA to adjust those ones.
READ ALSO: Honouring Excellence: Professor Hadiza Hamma’s Promotion to Professor of Law
NP: As a role model, what advice would you give to young women aspiring to academic and professional excellence?
Prof Hamma: I always tell women and girls that there will always be challenges but never give up no matter what. As long as you know you’re doing the right thing and you’re not encroaching on somebody’s right or anything like that, just don’t give up. Keep doing what you believe in doing, and in a matter of time you’ll get there and be very disciplined and patience, you can’t do anything without patience, actually. Even the discipline comes with patience. So that’s my advice to women and girls.
NP: What role did your husband and family play in your success?
Prof Hamma: A lot. My parents have always believed in getting us proper upbringing from moral upbringing to getting us the right kind of education, and they did their best from the beginning. I could see my father struggling, especially because by the time I started growing up, he was already a retiree. I could see him struggling with our education, but he never gave up.
My mother was always pushing us. She never had the opportunity to go to school like I did. She felt the need to fill in that gap with me. She had seven of us, and I was the last. All the others were boys, so she needed to build me. So they did their best to put me in the path to success.
My husband he came in at a time, a turning point in my life, the time some hope were lost I can’t say all because we are believers in the almighty Allah, but a lot of hopes were lost when my husband came into my life and Allah used him to turn things in my life. So he has always been like the backbone, the foundation like I always say, my greatest cheerleader.
Also, I’m surrounded by my siblings, who are also great people who are supportive and my children, too, they did their best.
NP: What is next for you in your academic and professional journey?
Prof Hamma: That is the question I’ve been trying to answer myself, I’ve been asking myself, so what’s next now? I’m a professor of law, but you know the way the academic works is, when you become a professor that is the time you have to start to contribute to knowledge and I want to continue to do that in my own way.
I want to bring in new things, and as I still have the energy and the age and time by grace of Allah. But I’m thinking of things outside the academia. There are things I’m working on, I’ll disclose them at the right time, but they are not yet ripe for disclosure.
NP: If you could implement one major reform in Nigeria’s educational system, what would it be?
Prof Hamma: Educational system or legal educational system….
I’m particularly concerned about legal education. I can see council of legal education doing a lot but especially from the faculties of law, I think there’s a lot that needs to be done speaking from my experience as a professor in the Federal Government University.
So many facilities are lacking, and then the need to fund education better than it has been funded now. We need a lot of say for example facilities for practicing legal education and many times some of the facilities of law loses accreditation not because they don’t have number of required teachers but because they lack facilities for moot court trials which you will need as a law student to build you. You can not be a good lawyer without having learned how to do the practice.
Those are some of the things that need to be changed. Funding, providing a lot of facilities for education, and then I’ll like us to pay more attention to practical aspects of education, especially legal education. The theory aspect is getting out of hand is getting outdated rather. So the earlier we begin to do more of the practice I think the better for us.
NP: Thank you very much for coming.
Prof Hamma: Thank you for having me.
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