Nigeria's Professor of Engineering Ayodele Awojobi

 

 THE BEGINNING

Born in Oshodi, Lagos State, Awojobi’s father, Chief Daniel Adekoya Awojobi, was a stationmaster at the Nigerian Railway who hailed from Ikorodu in Lagos State. His mother, Comfort Bamidele Awojobi (née Adetunji), was a petty trader who hailed from Modakeke, Ile-Ife, Osun State. Between 1942 and 1947, he attended St. Peter’s Primary School, Faji, Lagos.

It was while at his secondary school, the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, that his academic traits began to manifest. Not only was he seen to be gifted in mathematics and the sciences, he was comfortable also in the arts, becoming a member of the school’s literary and debating society. It was during this period that he earned the nickname, "Macbeth": William Shakespeare’s famous play, Macbeth, was to be staged in the school. The lead actor took ill a week before, and so Ayodele was called upon to play the lead role in his stead. It is said that not only did Ayodele master his lines as lead actor, but also the entire play, such that he was able to prompt the cast whenever they forgot their lines.

Ayodele was a straight-A’s secondary school student, while at the CMS Grammar school, passing his West African School Certificate examinations with a record eight distinctions in 1955. He proceeded to the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Ibadan, for his General Certificate of Examinations, GCE (Advanced Level), where in 1958 he sat for, and obtained distinctions in all his papers: Physics, Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. In 1962 Awojobi was awarded his first degree in Mechanical Engineering – a BSc (Eng) London, with first class honours, at the then Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria (now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria). He had studied there on a federal government scholarship won on the merit of his performance in the GCE (Advanced-level) examinations of 1958.

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It was said by Akintola Ajai (himself an engineering graduate of the University of London), that when Awojobi arrived at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria, he boasted openly saying that it was his intention to finish the whole course within a period of three years only; an impracticable feat due to the fact that nowhere was the BSc Mechanical Engineering curriculum designed to run less than four years. Ayodele accomplished it in three years just as he had predicted.

HOW HE BECAME A PROFESSOR WITHIN A WEEK

The federal government awarded Awojobi another scholarship in 1962 to study further at the post-graduate level in the field of Mechanical Engineering at the Imperial College of the University of London (now Imperial College London). He completed the course, successfully defending his thesis, and was awarded a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1966.

After a period teaching at the University of Lagos, he returned to the Imperial College London for a research study in the field of Vibration, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science, DSc. He was the first African to be awarded the Doctor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, at the Imperial College London.

The first university to admit an individual to this degree was in fact the University of London in 1860.

The status of the degree has declined, however, because it is not widely understood but in former times the doctorate in science was regarded as a greater distinctionthan a professorial chair. It is in fact a higher tier of research doctorates, awarded on the basis of a formally submitted portfolio of published research of a very high standard.

To have received the award at the age of 37 is significant, more so as the degree is only exceptionally and rarely awarded to a scholar under the age of 40.

On his return from England in 1966 Awojobi enrolled as a lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos, Akoka. His teaching methods endeared him to his engineering students, whose public chants: “Dead easy... Dead easy...”, would often be heard shouted in his direction as he went along the campus grounds. He quickly rose in the ranks among his colleagues and would later become the Head of Department, Mechanical Engineering, University of Lagos.

Awojobi went back to London to study for his Doctorate. He returned in 1974 and was made an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Lagos. However, one week after having been appointed associate professor, the University of Lagos Senate, after receiving news that Awojobi had just been awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc), immediately appointed him professor in Mechanical Engineering, making him the youngest professor in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos and the first ever to be expressly promoted from associate to full professorship within a week.

By nature, Ayodele Awojobi was a teacher. He imparted knowledge at various other levels, even as he contended with his day job as a full-time professor and university lecturer. He envisaged his country as a whole becoming more advanced, technologically – this was exemplified when he refused lucrative offers from commercial outfits for his Autonov 1 invention, he rather preferring to preserve his design for his country's future benefit.

Awojobi’s students stood in awe of him. They told of how he would come to the classroom without any textbook or notes – only a duster. Some recalled that after solving equations, he would say "Dead easy," and that was because he meant it to be so. They were amazed by the way their former lecturer used to derive equations.

"It was nearly impossible to fail Awojobi’s course. This was because, by the time he would take you through the process, he would have simplified it. He was not around many times but he gave us lots of assignments," someone said.

SOCIAL ACTIVISM

He engaged with great educators of his, and earlier generations, such as the late nationalist and Yoruba leader, Obafemi Awolowo (who forwarded several of Ayodele’s educational books), the late activist, social crusader and educator, Tai Solarin, and the once Lagos State governor, Lateef Kayode Jakande, who achieved free education at all educational levels in Lagos State, Nigeria. Jakande believed in Awolowo's visionary ideas about the way forward for the nation, particularly in Awolowo's resounding theme of qualitative and quantitative education across the nation, free of over-bearing school fees.

Ayodele Awojobi became, at one time, the chairman, Lagos State School’s Management Board, out of his concern for ways to better improve the problems inherent in secondary school education in Lagos State, Nigeria. He desired that all his children go to public schools. The older ones all did. Such was his vision and hope that the country would some day attain equitable distribution in the quality of education cutting across different social strata. He authored several books for both the secondary and tertiary levels of education in Nigeria.

His natural propensity to inform, to educate, drove him to become, in the early 1970s, a quiz-master on national television. The quiz-show, Mastermind, consisted of weekly contestants taking turns in isolation on "the hot-seat", whereupon various categories of questions would be thrown at them. Otunba Gbenga Daniel, former governor of Ogun State, Nigeria, was a returning winner and champion on Mastermind for several episodes over; he being in his undergraduate years at the time.

HIS INVENTIONS

While as a lecturer in the University of Lagos, Awojobi successfully converted his own family car, an Opel Record, from right-hand drive to a left-hand drive.

He tinkered further with motor engines when he acquired an army-type jeep and proceeded to invent a second steering-wheel mechanism, adjoined to the pre-existing engine at the rear end, so that the vehicle was able to move in both forward and backward directions with all four pre-existing gears. This gave the hybrid vehicle, which he christened Autonov 1, the ability to achieve its highest speeds at a moment's notice, in the normal reverse direction. He highlighted the advantage this might offer to army vehicles, as an example, that might need to make a fast retreat, in a cul-de-sac or ambush situation.

HIS POLITICS

Ayodele Awojobi, in the wake of the presidential election results that returned the incumbent, Shehu Shagari as President in the Nigerian Second Republic, became very vocal in the national newspapers and magazines, going as far as suing the Federal Government of Nigeria for what he strongly believed was a widespread election rigging. With all his court cases against the Nigerian government thrown out of court, he delved into the law books, himself being only a mechanical engineer, claiming that he would earn his law degrees in record time, to enable him better argue with the opposition at the federal courts.

Recalling his fond memory of Awojobi, Kunle Awobodu said:"One day, Professor Awojobi was in court in one of the Shehu Shagari Versus Obafemi Awolowo political litigation cases. He did not eat that day. I went out secretly to eat but the man refused to eat. He said he wondered where Nigeria was going. When he left the court that day he said he discovered that he was being trailed and his movement monitored and he refused to go home. That was in Lagos then."

He used the universities as a bastion, going from campus to campus to make speeches at student-rallies, hoping to sensitize them to what he perceived as the ills of a corrupt government. Ayodele Awojobi authored several political books over the course of his ideological struggles against a perceived, corrupt federal government. These books were usually made available during his public rallies or symposiums.

Any intention Ayodele Awojobi ever had of entering partisan politics, was revealed by the man himself when he spoke on national television, saying: "At the age of 65, I will have built the infrastructure. There would be very few illiterates in Nigeria when I mount the soapbox. Then, I will go into proper politics".

HIS DREAM AS TOLD IN "JUST BEFORE DAWN" BY KOLE OMOTOSO

In the dream, Mr. Awojobi was invited to a special church service marking the beginning of a week long prayer session for the country. It was on a Sunday. The church was a cathedral along Marina, Lagos. Simultaneously, there was an open air service too at Abuja with both the executive president (then Mr. Shehu Shagari) and his vice president in attendance.

Other dignitaries, ministers, commissioners, etc were present too. A radio communication link was established between the cathedral in Lagos and the open air service in Abuja.

As usual with church services, a song was rendered to start the occasion. It was Immortal, Invisible, God only Wise. Thereafter, prayers were offered followed by bible reading and sermon. The bible reading was taken from Jeremiah 8: 4-17. Then the Bishop mounted the rostrum, offered a short prayer and started to preach to the congregation.

He praised the rulers but condemned the populace in the society for being lazy, complacent, greedy, impervious, lawless and swollen headed. He pitied the rulers for the burden they bear for us all and prayed that the saviour shared in their burden.

After the sermon, the Bishop went outside the norm in such a service by wishing to have a response from any distinguished member of the congregation. Instead of picking any of the ministers and commissioners on seat, he chose Mr. Awojobi.

The latter mounted the pulpit only to inform the audience that he disagreed entirely with the Bishop, describing the rulers as law breakers, smugglers, etc. He accused the ministers and commissioners present of taking bribes.

An atmosphere of total discomfort descended on the Bishop, church workers and the congregation. Layreaders were itching to switch off the radio link and were eagerly looking up to the Bishop for a sign to that effect. This was intended to avoid any embarrassment to the presidency. The Bishop was ruminating in his mind on whether to stop Mr. Awojobi.

Suddenly, Mr. Awojobi said that, I quote:
I have the list of the corrupt practices of our ministers and commissioners, senior civil servants, all those who are supposed to take care of the society through the institution of the state. And I intend to read the list and say against each name what he or she has done,unquote.

Mr. Awojobi brought out a piece of paper and was trying to unfold it. But this action infuriated the Bishop and forced him to stand up, move swiftly towards Mr. Awojobi, then whipped off the list from his hands. In an attempt to recover the list, he was pinned down by three aids of the Bishop, and then bundled from the pulpit to outside the church. That was the dream.

HOW HE DIED

His immediate younger brother Engineer Busola Awojobi claimed his brother was struck with juju when he went along with a bailiff to Akure to serve Chief Omoboriowo the then deputy governor to the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin during the legal battles of the Ondo State governorship in 1983. " Immediately he (late Awojobi) was sighted, one of Chief Akin Omoboriowo’s supporters came around and shouted this is the man. He was then attacked physically and spiritually as he was hit with juju and his illness started from Akure till he died on 23rdSeptember 1984", Busola said.

Expatiating, he said his brother died fighting for a just cause and for Nigeria to change positively but was misunderstood. Busola referred to the Alhaji Shehu Shagari vs the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo political legal tussle. According to him, his elder brother fought and argued the 12

2/3(twelve-two-third) of which Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN) declared Shagari to have won the states to become the president in 1979. "My brother also fought and filed litigations during the late Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin (when he was the governor of Ondo State) and Chief Omoboriowo’s legal tussle. My late brother Professor Ayodele Awojobi took it upon himself and accompanied the bailiff to Akure, to serve Omoboriowo the election petition papers and it was there they struck him with charm and his illness started."

On whether his late brother suffered mental illness before his demise, the younger Awojobi corroborated the story. "Well, his illness started from Akure when Omoboriowo’s supporters hit him with charm. That is exactly where the problem started. When he got back to Lagos things started going wrong with him physically and mentally."

Ayodele Awojobi died in the morning of Sunday, September 23, 1984, at the age of 47. His death made headline news in most of the national newspapers for days following. He was survived by his wife, Mrs Iyabode Mabel Awojobi (née Odetunde), and children.

At the Ojokoro cemetery in Ikorodu lies the remains of the erudite scholar with these epitaphs on the marble stone:

"HEREIN LIES " THE BELOVED AYODELE OLUTUMINU AWOJOBI 1937 – 1984. DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PHD) UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS . HE DENIED HIMSELF AND HIS VERY OWN. HE LIVED FOR OTHERS, FOR STRANGERS AND FRIENDS ALIKE , FOR HIS COUNTRYMEN AND FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF HUMANITY THROUGH SEARCHES, RESEARCHES AND EVOLVING SOLUTIONS. SUNRE O OMO KUN-KUN KE KE . RIP.

Apparently following the footsteps of their late brother, many of his siblings are engineers. Professor Ayodele read Mechanical Engineering , his younger brother Yinka Awojobi read Electronics Engineering, Busola his brother read Civil and Structural Engineering from University of London too. The late Professor Awojobi’s son Ayodeji read Mechanical Engineering from UNILAG and is now in London where he read Aerospace engineering . His (Ayodele) last born, Folayemi Awojobi studied Mechanical Engineering from UNILAG. 

Usually every year till date, a tribute or two in Ayodele's honour would be published in the form of an article in a national newspaper, such as the one published by The Nation on November 5, 2009, entitled "Tribute to Ayodele Awojobi". In October 2009, the governor of Lagos State Babatunde Fashola dedicated a statue of Awojobi at Onike Roundabout, Yaba, Lagos, in a garden named after him. On September 23, 2010, Birrel Street – a prominent street in Yaba Local Government Council Area – was renamed "Prof. Ayodele Awojobi Avenue", a further tribute to Awojobi's memory.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Nation Archives, Just Before Dawn