The pantheon of mortals who have successfully combined outstanding academic excellence and top-level public administration is micro-infinitesimal. Dr Victor Omololu Olunloyo, who was born on April 1935 and exited, days to his 90th birthday, on April 6, 2025, falls within that rarified echelon. The nexus with the ancient and picturesque city of Ibadan, South-Western Nigeria, the land of his birth, is therefore important. After all, Ibadan, is no ordinary city!
At Nigeria’s Independence on October 1, 1960, Ibadan was the most populous city in Africa and heralded many fascinating socio-political and cultural antecedents. Of note, Ibadan was the first capital of the Western Region of Nigeria (comprising present-day, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, Osun, Lagos, Ekiti, Edo, Delta states) between 1952-1966. Ibadan was the foundation of the Western Nigeria Television/Western Nigerian Broadcasting Service (WNTV/WNBS), “first in Africa”, established in 1959.
Nigeria’s pioneering tertiary centre of academic excellence, University of Ibadan, was founded in 1948; just as the pioneering teaching hospital, by its very definition, University College Hospital, Ibadan, founded four years later in 1952. The Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) was established in Ibadan in 1964.
The first ultra-modern multi-purpose Nigerian sporting arena, Liberty Stadium, Ibadan, established in 1960. This coincided with the Nigeria’s 1960 independence. Liberty Stadium hosted the pioneering African-staged world boxing middle-weight championship fight, between the immortal Nigerian southpaw Richard Ihetu, a.k.a. “Dick Tiger” (1929-1971); and the great American boxer, Gene Fullmer (1931-2015), on August 10, 1963.
Dick Tiger defeated Fullmer to reverberating pan-Africanist acclaim in the nascency of post-colonial African independence struggles. The stadium was the home ground to the legendary football club, IICC Shooting Stars of the 1970s and 1980s fame.
Metaphorically, Ibadan, is a land of a thousand hills (“Oke”) including, Oke-Ado, Oke-Are, Oke-Aremo, Oke-Bola, Oke-Foko, Oke-Mapo, Oke-Mokola, Oke-Padre, Oke-Sapati, and Oluyoro Oke-Offa. Its natural landscape once evoked serenity and tranquillity, absorbing the cascading greenery of Apata-Ganga, Idi Ayunre, Idi Ishin, Idi Ose, Jericho, Moor Plantation et al. The Alapansanpa, Oloo Olu, Olu Oje Erimo Oje masquerades inter alia, reinforce the city’s rich cultural heritage.
Within the educational sphere, Ibadan hosts some of the oldest and best secondary schools in Africa. St. Anne’s School, established in 1869; Ibadan Grammar School, established in 1913; Government College Ibadan, founded in 1929; St. Teresa’s College, founded, in 1933; Queen’s School Ibadan, founded in 1952; Loyola College, Ibadan, founded in 1954, Lagelu Grammar School, established in 1958 etc. Together, Ibadan has been home to, nurtured, and produced some of the world’s most renowned geniuses across the legal, liberal arts, medicine, natural sciences, public administration and social sciences.
That context, which frames Dr Olunloyo’s impactful legacy in the educational sphere and beyond, is highly impressive, and therefore justifies examination.
A product of the merit-based and prestigious Government College Ibadan (GCI), founded in 1929 by English Oxbridge educationists, Olunloyo’s intellectual prowess shone brightly. Following exacting academic drills, at 13, Olunloyo won a scholarship to GCI in 1948 where he excelled. His contemporaries at GCI included Africa’s first Nobel prize winner, Professor Wole Soyinka, the renowned physician, late Professor Oladipo Akinkugbe, erstwhile administrator, Dr Lekan Are amongst other distinguished Old Boys.
At GCI, Olunloyo found time amidst the academic rigour, for the gentleman’s sport of cricket and was an excellent opening bowler. A rare accomplishment then, and now, as most doctoral degree programmes are concluded in four years, Olunloyo concluded his in two years, at St. Andrews’ University, Scotland in 1961 aged 25! His doctoral thesis analysed the Numerical Determination of the Solutions of Eigenvalue Problems of the Sturm-Liouville Type. Hitherto, he earned a First-Class Honours Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the same institution becoming the Prizeman for that year.
Unsurprisingly therefore, his St. Andrews’ University citation established: “In July 1958, this rare gem achieved yet another feat by bagging B.Sc. (First Class Honours) degree in Mechanical Engineering. He was treated to an adoring and high-profile graduation ceremony. The young engineer was specially transferred from the Faculty of Applied Science to the Faculty of Pure Science for a Ph.D. in Mathematics straight away. He completed his PhD. Mathematics in two years including two summer vacations.”
Thus, epitomising the veritable of meaning combined honours with outstanding academic feats in mechanical engineering and mathematics. The logical career progression for Olunloyo was academia, a virtuous circle which he rightly squared, by taking up lecturing positions at the Department of Mathematics, University College Ibadan (later University of Ibadan), and the University of Ife (renamed Obafemi Awolowo University in 1987), which was then based at the University of Ibadan.
Dr Victor Omololu Olunloyo’s accomplishments traversed public administration. In 1962, a serious political crisis engulfed Nigeria’s Western Region in the first Republic (1959-1966) splitting pivotal former allies: Chief Obafemi Awolowo (first premier of the Western Region) and Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola (first deputy Premier, later, Premier of the Western Region). The latter prompted the emergency rule under the interim administration of Dr Moses Majekodunmi: 1962 to 1963. Ibadan was also caught up in the political upheavals of the mid-1960s following the January 15, 1966 military coup, and the July 29, 1966 counter-coup, which claimed the lives Chief S.L. Akintola, General Aguiyi Ironsi (Nigeria’s first miliary leader); Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi (first military Governor of the Western Region) amongst other key dramatis personae.
At various points in that decade and through the 1970s, Olunloyo served as Commissioner for Economic Planning, Commissioner for Community Development, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Commissioner for Special Duties and, crucially, twice as Commissioner for Education.
In the latter role, he catalysed meritocracy and facilitated the award of life-changing scholarships to gifted students from diverse backgrounds, many whom are, and were, captains of industry in Nigeria and around the globe. Olunloyo also headed the Western Nigeria Development Corporation (WNDC) now, ODUA Group as well as being the pioneering Rector of The Polytechnic, Ibadan amongst other federal and state agencies.
Dr Olunloyo was elected as the Executive Governor of Oyo State on October 1, 1983, under the prospectus of the National Party of Nigeria, then headed by Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1925-2018), a Fulani, Northern Muslim in Nigeria’s complex geopolitics. The inference being that Olunloyo, a Yoruba, South Western Nigerian with dual Christian and Muslim ancestry, was a detribalised Nigerian. Because he could have joined the uber dominant party across Southern Nigeria and the Middle Belt at the time, the Unity Party of Nigeria, headed by foremost nationalist, Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987).
However, that initial foray into partisan politics was stumped as the civilian administration was upended by the military dictatorship of General Muhammadu Buhari and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon (December 31, 1983-August 27, 1985). 19 years after the Buhari/Idiagbon dictatorship removed Olunloyo from elected office, he recontested for the position of Oyo State Governor in 2002, under the auspices of the People’s Democratic Party, albeit unsuccessfully.
On the margins of the 2014 Government College Ibadan Old Boys Annual Week Lecture, Luncheon and Merit Awards Ceremony, held at The Civic Centre, Victoria Island Lagos, which Dr Olunloyo chaired, and where Senator Femi Okurounmu, was the guest speaker, Dr. Olunloyo engaged me in witty discourse and shared a remarkable history lesson with me. I knew the story but Dr Victor Olunloyo, even though quite frail, with a neck brace at the material time, but still super sharp intellectually, reaffirmed it.
Essentially, Dr Olunloyo established that he was actually given the name “Victor” by his late father’s (Pa Horatio Olunloyo, scholar, organist and administrator of repute) friend, Grandpa, Chief Victor Owolabi Esan (1906-1984), of the Lincoln’s Inn, former Ekerin-Aare Olubadan, pioneering Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Ibadan; as well as the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ibadan (1975/1976).
Messrs Horatio Olunloyo and Victor Owolabi Esan were devout Christians and key members of the Ibadan Progressive Union, founded in the 1930s, a voluntary organisation devoted to the sustained development of Ibadan and the welfare of its citizens within and outside Nigeria irrespective of religious and social backgrounds.
Outside academics, public administration and partisan politics, Dr Victor Omololu Olunloyo enjoyed witticisms, history, good music and was rightly proud of his Ibadan heritage. Of course, as a human being, he was far from perfect. Undoubtedly however, he has left a remarkable legacy in academia and administration, which ought, reasonably, to inspire current and future generations to seek outstanding and impactful service to society.
In the final analysis, Dr Victor Omololu Olunloyo truly exemplified the motto of Government College Ibadan: Learning to serve. May his impactful soul rest in perfect peace!
Ojumu, Government College Ibadan Old Boy, is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development (2023).
Credit:The Guardian