Chike Obi: Mathematician

Recognised by Nkuzify as Patron Teacher of the Year.

World Teachers' Day
Happy Teachers' Day from all of us at Nkuzify.

How do you earn a degree in mathematics in a country that has no mathematics degree to give you?

Chike Obi's answer was the postal service. He studied for his London degrees by correspondence, working alone and sending his papers across the sea.

Three years after his master's degree, he held a Cambridge doctorate, the first mathematics PhD ever earned by a Nigerian.

Degrees by post

He was born on 17 April 1921. He earned his BSc in 1946 and his MSc in 1947 from the University of London, studying by correspondence.

Cambridge, and a first for Nigeria

He then went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his supervisors were the mathematicians Mary Cartwright and John Littlewood. In 1950 he received his doctorate, with research on non-linear differential equations, and became the first Nigerian to earn a PhD in mathematics.

A mathematician in a hurry to build a nation

He came home to teach at University College, Ibadan, and later became professor of mathematics at the University of Lagos, serving as head of department and as dean. He also gave his life almost equally to politics, as a founder and first secretary-general of the Dynamic Party and a member of the Eastern House of Assembly. In 1985 he won the Sigvard Eklund Prize in mathematics and founded the Nanna Institute for Scientific Studies in Onitsha. He died on 13 March 2008.

Why Nkuzify celebrates him

Obi proves that a hard subject belongs to anyone willing to learn it, even when the road is long and the lessons arrive by post. That is what we believe about mathematics and every other subject at Nkuzify. Learning does not belong to the people with the best classroom. It belongs to the people with the courage to study.

Read more in Nkuzi: The Igbo Pillars of Education, or make a free Thank You card for your own teacher.