Philip Emeagwali was born in Akure, Ondo State South West Nigeria on 23 August 1954. He is an Igbo Nigerian-born computer scientist/geologist who was one of two winners of the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, a prize from the IEEE, for his use of the Connection Machine supercomputer – a machine featuring over 65,000 parallel processors – to help analyze petroleum fields.He dropped out of school in 1967 because of the Nigerian-Biafran war. When he turned fourteen, he was conscripted into the Biafran army. After the war he completed a high-school equivalency through self-study and came to the United States to study at university under a scholarship. Actually, Emeagwali studied in England right after departing from Africa. He came to the United States later. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Oregon State University in 1977. He received a master's degree in environmental engineering from George Washington University in 1981, and another master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1986. He also received a post-master's degree in ocean, coastal and marine engineering from George Washington University in that year. He was also working as a civil engineer at the Bureau of Land Reclamation in Wyoming during this period.
Emeagwali received the $1,000 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, based on an application of the CM-2 massively-parallel computer for oil-reservoir modeling. He won in the "price/performance" category, with a performance figure of 400 Mflops/$1M, corresponding to an absolute performance of 3.1 Gflops. (The winning entry in the "peak performance" category that year – coincidentally also for oil-related seismic data processing on a CM-2 – actually achieved 6 Gflops, or 500 Mflops/$1M, but the judges decided not to award both prizes to the same team.) This simulation was the first program to apply a pseudo-time approach to reservoir modeling.
Apart from the prize itself, there is no evidence that Emeagwali's work was ever accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, nor that it had any other lasting impact on the field of high-performance computing or the development of the Internet. Neither does he hold any recognized patents for his results. (He does, however, own a US trademark for his website name, "EMEAGWALI.COM".) Nevertheless, over the next twenty years, he has received numerous further awards and recognitions based on his Bell Prize win, ranging from one from the World Bank-IMF Africa Club to being voted the "35th-greatest African (and greatest African scientist) of all time" in a survey by New African magazine. His achievements were quoted in a speech by Bill Clinton as an example of what Nigerians could achieve when given the opportunity. He is also a frequent feature of Black History Month articles in the popular press.
Chike Edozien Umezei Obi was born on April 17, 1921, in Zaria, Northern Nigeria. He was once the Asagba of Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria. He was the first sub-Saharan African to hold a doctorate in mathematics and later professor of mathematics. His father was Nathaniel Okafor Edozien, a direct descendant of Nnebisi , founder of Asaba and one of the most senior indigenous officials of the Nigerian Coal Corporation in Enugu. His mother, Nwakuso Edozien (née Odogwu), was the daughter of a prominent Asaba chief, and a notable trader.
Professor Chike Obi was educated in various parts of Nigeria before reading mathematics as an external student of the University of London. Immediately after his first degree, he won a scholarship to do research study at Pembroke College, Cambridge, followed by doctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, becoming in 1950, the first Nigerian to bag a PhD in mathematics.
He returned to lecture at the premier Nigerian University of Ibadan. He was soon diverted from this by political activities. After the war, he returned to lecture in 1970 at the University of Lagos where he quickly rose to the senior academic role of a professor. He left Lagos to return to his root in the city of Onitsha, establishing the Nnanna Institute for Scientific Studies.
Obi had won the Sigvard Ecklund Prize for original work in differential equation from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. He was a university teacher until his retirement as an Emeritus Professor in 1985.
In 1997, Obi was believed to have found an elementary proof to Fermat’s Last Theorem. This work was carried out at his Nnanna Institute for Scientific Studies in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria and published in Algebras, Groups and Geometries.
Professor Chike Obi helped to form the Dynamic Party of Nigeria, of which he served as its first secretary-general. After the party merged with the larger National Council of Nigerian and Cameroon, Obi was elected as part of the Nigerian delegation that negotiated the country’s path to self rule at two London conferences in 1957 and 1958.
After Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, Obi was elected a legislator in the Eastern House of Assembly in 1960, he refused to vacate his seat in the national legislature in Lagos, the Speaker of the regional house ordered that Obi be physically removed by security agents. This order was obeyed and Obi decided to commit himself to regional affairs. In 1962, Obi was arrested and charged with treason in a closed trial organized by the then national civilian government, who accused him and others, including the main opposition leader at the time, Obafemi Awolowo, of plotting to overthrow the government. He was later released for “want of evidence.” When the Civil War broke out in 1966, Obi sided with Biafra, working for the rebel leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Obi derided religion and ethnic extremism, and the culture of corruption pervading the Nigerian political class. He was a national newspaper columnist in the 1980s, writing under the title, "I speak For the People."
Professor Obi was a visiting professor to the University of Rhode Island, USA, the University of Jos, Nigeria, and the Chinese Academy of Science, Obi was a recipient of the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science. He was the author of several books and journals on mathematics and Nigerian politics. Chike Obi died on the 13th of March 2008 and was survived by his wife Melinda, a fellow mathematician, and four children.
Oladipo Olujimi Akinkugbe was born on 17 July, 1933 to the family of late Chief D.A. Akinkugbe, the Odofin of Ondo and Chief (Mrs.) G.A. Akinkugbe. Professor Akinkugbe was educated at Government College, Ibadan and the University College, Ibadan. Later he attended London University -the Royal London Hospital- where he received his medical degree, MBBS, in 1958. Professor Akinkugbe obtained a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1960 from Liverpool University, and received a Doctor of Philosophy from Balliol College, Oxford University, in 1964.
Professor Oladipo Olujimi Akinkugbe is one of the world’s most distinguished and respected physicians and intellectuals. He is the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin; former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University; former visiting professor of Medicine at Harvard University; former Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of council of the University of Port Harcourt as well as Emeritus professor of Medicine, University of Ibadan.
Akinkugbe was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Ibadan in 1968, where he became the youngest professor in the African continent with the award. He has joined other achievers like renowned industrialist, Mr. Gamaliel Onosode, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson (rtd), Retired Supreme Court Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, Prof. Grace Alele-Williams' famous mathematicians and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) and Justice Mohammed Lambo among others.
When asked how he felt being a professor at 35, Akinkugbe said that although he felt accomplished, he also saw it as a challenge. As the first chairman of the JAMB, Akinkugbe said that the examination body started with the best intentions which have been destroyed by self-centred people. He also blamed JAMB woes on invigilators, the management and parents. Akinkugbe said that JAMB could be salvaged by correcting certain errors and instilling discipline among the workers and invigilators.
Professor Akinkugbe has served as World Health Organisation Expert on Health Manpower and WHO Council Member on Health Research. He was the President of the Nigerian Association of Nephrology(1987-90); Member of the Governing Council and Board of Trustees; Obafemi Awolowo Foundation (1992); International Society of Hypertension (1982-90); and Board of Trustees of the African Association of Nephrology(1986). Professor Akinkugbe has been on the editorial boards of many distinguished publications, including the Journal of Hypertension (1984-90), Human Hypertension (1988), Kidney International (1990), Blood Pressure (1991) and News of Physiological Sciences (1992).
He has published, edited and authored numerous theses, books, journals and reports, which include: Angiotensin and the kidney: Observations on High Blood Pressure in the West African: East African Medical Journal (special supplement, 1969) – Symposium on Blood Pressure and Hypertension in Africa; Hypertension and stroke control in the community: Principles of Medicine in Africa, 1976; The Health of Nations - Medicine, Disease, and Development in the third World (1995); High Blood Pressure in the Africa 1972; Cardiovascular Disease in Africa, 1976, and Nigeria and Education – the challenges Ahead, 1994. Click to view Interview that highlights the secret of his success.
(Courtesy: magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com, zoominfo.com, en.wikipedia)
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