27 Facts About Ayodele Awojobi

Ayodele Awojobi was considered a scholarly genius by his teachers and peers alike.

Ayodele Awojobi's mother, Comfort Bamidele Awojobi, was a petty trader who hailed from Modakeke, Ile-Ife, Osun State.

The lead actor took ill a week before, and so Ayodele Awojobi was called upon to play the lead role in his stead.

Ayodele Oluwatumininu Awojobi 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.

Ayodele Awojobi proceeded to the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Ibadan, for his General Certificate of Examinations, GCE, where in 1958 he sat for, and obtained distinctions in all his papers: Physics, Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics.

Ayodele Awojobi had studied there on a federal government scholarship won on the merit of his performance in the GCE examinations of 1958.

Ayodele Awojobi accomplished it in three years just as he had predicted.

Ayodele Awojobi completed the course, successfully defending his thesis, and was awarded a PhD in mechanical engineering in 1966.

Ayodele Awojobi was the first African to be awarded the Doctor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, at the Imperial College London.

On his return from England in 1966 Ayodele Awojobi enrolled as a lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos, Akoka.

Ayodele Awojobi quickly rose in the ranks among his colleagues and would later become the head of department, Mechanical Engineering, University of Lagos.

Ayodele Awojobi went back to London to study for his doctorate.

Ayodele Awojobi 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 Ayodele Awojobi had just been awarded the degree of Doctor of Science, 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.

Ayodele Awojobi imparted knowledge at various other levels, even as he contended with his day job as a full-time professor and university lecturer.

Ayodele Awojobi engaged with great educators of his, and earlier generations, such as the late nationalist and Yoruba leader, Obafemi Awolowo, 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.

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.

Ayodele Awojobi desired that all his children go to public schools.

Ayodele Awojobi authored several books for both the secondary and tertiary levels of education in Nigeria.

Ayodele Awojobi 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 could move forward and backwards with all four pre-existing gears.

Ayodele Awojobi 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.

Ayodele Awojobi, in the wake of the presidential election results that returned the incumbent, Shehu Shagari as president in the Second Nigerian 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.

Ayodele Awojobi used the universities as a bastion, going from campus to campus to make speeches at student-rallies, hoping to sensitise 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.

Ayodele Awojobi died in the morning of Sunday, 23 September 1984, at the age of 47.

Ayodele Awojobi's death made headline news in most of the national newspapers for days following and he was laid to rest at Ikorodu Cemetery, Lagos.

Ayodele Awojobi was survived by his wife, Mrs Iyabode Mabel Awojobi, and children.