Dora Akunyili, Stella Adadevoh, Kefee Momoh… the 10 most painful deaths of 2014

8. J.F. ADE AJAYI, FATHER OF HISTORY

Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi was a Nigerian academic, an emeritus professor of history, one of the Professors from Ekiti who made Nigerians rate Ekiti as the most literate state in the country.

Ade Ajayi attended the famous Igbobi College in Yaba Lagos, before proceeding to the University of Ibadan where he bagged a degree in history in the early 1950s. He went on to Liecester University in the United Kingdom, where he trained as an historian under the tutelage of Jack Simmons, an Oxford-trained historian.

Ajayi returned to Nigeria, where he lectured at numerous Nigerian Universities, including the University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos. He was vice chancellor of the University of Lagos from 1972 to 1978, a time famously known for the Ali-must-go protest in Nigerian education sphere.

Although Kenneth Dike, the first Indigenous vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan, is referred to as the father of Nigerian history, J.F. Ade Ajayi also carved a niche for himself to be so referred to.

Ade Ajayi, 85, died on August 9, 2014.