PROFILE: Nigeria's First Professor Of Mathematics

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   By Victor Olubiye

 


  Nigeria’s first professor of Mathematics is widely recognized to be Professor Adegoke Olubummo. He was born on April 19, 1923 in Orin Ekiti, Ondo State, Nigeria. His father was the revered Olorin of Orin, namely H.R.H. Oba William Adekolawolu Olubummo II, and his mother was Olori Abigael Osarayi Olubummo.


   He was given birth to as a child of parents of high honor, he received an excellent education at Methodist schools in which he worked (Ifaki Methodist School) as a pupil teacher in 1937. 


   In 1938, at the age of 14, Olubumo entered Wesley College in Ibadan. In 1942 he returned to his alma mater as a teacher, and for the next few years taught at primary and secondary schools in Nigeria, Ghana (then the Gold Coast), and Sierra Leone. He earned his B.A. from Fourah College in Freetown Sierra Leone (1950).


   Adegoke Olubummo earned his M.A. in Mathematics (1952) and his Ph.D. (1955) from King's College, University of Durham in Castle-Upon-Tyne, United Kingdom. 


   In 1955, he began as a lecturer in the mathematics department the University College, Ibadan, Nigeria where he was promoted to (Full) Professor in 1964 contrary to the widely held view that Professor Chike Obi is the first Nigerian Professor of Mathematics.


   Dr. Olobummo was head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Ibadan for many years, where he was determined to create qualitative traditions in spite of the handicaps of development in a young African university. 


   In 1985, he retired from the University of Ibadan, and became Dean of the Faculty of Science of Ondo State University.


   Dr. Adegoke Olubummo, with James Ezeilo and Chike Obi, was one of a trio of black (indigenous) mathematicians who pioneered modern mathematics research in Nigeria. 


   He pioneered the establishment of the Forum for Functional Analysis and its Applications and the Nigerian Mathematical Society. Many of his Ibadan students went off to earn the doctorate in mathematics; e.g., T. O. Adewoye, Olusola Akinyele, S. K. Assiamous, V. A. Babola, the Senator S. O. Iyahen, E. O. Oshabi, and O. Popoola.


  All three of Professor Olubummo's children are mathematicians as he forbade any to read any other course as first degree except Mathematics. 


  The eldest daughter Yewande (standing right) is a professor of Mathematics in the US. Yewande and Ronke made the First class effortlessly,   while  Gboyega who dared to "fail Maths" by graduating with a 2nd class upper degree later did a Pgd in Computer science at Unilag and became a programmer with Microsoft.


   He died on October 26, 1992 after a protracted illness.

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