About Matthew

Now a leading public intellectual focused on corruption and kleptocracy, Matthew was the U.S. State Department's top Nigeria expert.

Matthew T. Page is a leading public intellectual focused on corruption and kleptocracy worldwide. In May 2023, the Putin regime banned him from entering Russia because of his anti-corruption work. An associate fellow with Chatham House in London and a non-resident scholar with the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Matthew is finishing up work on a new book--Understanding Kleptocracy (Hurst, 2024).

Prior to 2016, Matthew served as the U.S. intelligence community’s top Nigeria expert. For more than two decades, senior policymakers at the White House, State Department, Defense Department, and in Congress have sought out his analysis on Africa’s most populous country and largest economy. His first book Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2018) remains one of the “three books you need to understand Nigeria,” according to the Washington Post.

During his time in public service, Matthew was the senior intelligence analyst for West Africa at the Defense Intelligence Agency before joining the Africa office at Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Prior to that, he served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Africa with the National Intelligence Council and as an intelligence analyst with U.S. Marine Corps. Matthew’s public service accolades include the Intelligence Community’s National Intelligence Analysis Award, two Superior Honor Awards from the Department of State, and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Civilian Meritorious Service Medal. He is also a recipient of the Council on Foreign Relations’ prestigious International Affairs Fellowship.

Matthew is also a longtime non-resident fellow with the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, Nigeria, where he sits on the editorial board of Democracy and Development: Journal of West African Affairs. Matthew has cultivated a robust network of official, academic, civil society, and private sector contacts outside Washington and in Nigeria, where he has traveled widely over the last two decades.