{UAH} DEATH OF MY FATHER IN LAW, PROFESSOR AYODELE BAIYELO

My friends, it is with much sadness to let you know my father in law
Professor Ayodele Baiyelo passed away last wednesday in a hospital in
Lagos, Nigeria. He had been suffering from cancer, which was only
recently diagnosed when it had become malignant and he died in some
pain.

Professor Ayo as he was known was one of the outstanding nucleaur
physicists of out time. Born in a small town and of a small minority
tribe in eastern Nigeria, his academic brilliance was recognised early
and he was one of the first wave of Africans to study abroad,
graduating with a Ph.D in nuclear physics.

He returned to Nigeria where for many years he taught at the
University of Lagos, rising up to the rank of Professor. He also
taught in many other African Universities as a visiting professor or
research fellow, most recently in Ghana and Botswana.

Although basically a nuclear scientist, Professor Ayo in his later
academic career shifted to Education of which he also became
pre-eminent, teaching as far away as Argentina. He had quickly
realised that Nigeria was not going to realise any nuclear ambitions
soon and in later life life began to argue for appropriate education,
relevant to the African social and economic milieu, and was a powerful
advocate for educational excellence and the education of girls.

I met him at his home at the University of Lagos in 1993. That is when
my then girl friend Olanike took me there to make introductions. I
had no idea that I would return to London a married man. But we got
married in a traditional ceremony, with a muganda woman called
Elizabeth standing in as a representative of my family as I had no
relatives in Lagos and the only Dokolo man in Nigeria at the time was
Professor Okello Oculi, but he was in far away Ahmadu Bello University
in Zaria, northern Nigeria.

Professor Ayo had a profound intellectual influence on my children (
his wife is also an educationalist, a Headmistress of one of the
biggest girl's schools in Lagos). My children often go to Nigeria
during school holidays and both the grandparents always took turns
teaching the children what they were never taught in their own
schools, and this partly explains their acdaemic brilliance, and
compensates for the fact they have never had any Ugandan educational
influence apart from myself as the tyranny in Uganda has made it
impossible for them to visit.

The professor leaves behind 5 children and 6 grandchildren.The
scientific and education academic community in Nigeria will miss
excellence and brilliance of mind and so will we his family.

George Okello