Prof Ade Ajayi dies at 85

By OLA AJAYI, IBADAN

Eminent historian, Prof. J.F. Ade-Ajayi, 85, is dead. He died at the University College Hospital, Ibadan after a brief illness.

 Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Prof. Isaac Adewole described Late Ade Ajayi as an intellectual colossus and fountain of knowledge who blazed the trail in establishing the validity of African history as an academic discipline.

“The late Ajayi was an important part of the anti-colonial, and post-independence, scholarship that successfully established the fact that Africa had a history which pre-dated European encounters with the continent. Mentor of many generations of historians, Ade Ajayi was an ethical researcher and outstanding scholar, who with others established the Ibadan School of History.”

Prof. J. F. Ade Ajayi was a foundation student of University of Ibadan, then known as University College in 1948. 

He was Head of the Department of History at the University of Ibadan from 1966 to 1969, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts between 1964 and 1966. Between 1972 and 1978, Ajayi was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos. He also held teaching and research appointments at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Stanford University among others. He retired from the University of Ibadan in 1989.

For his contribution to scholarship and nation-building, Prof. Emeritus Ade Ajayi was honoured by UI, his alma mater, with a honorary doctorate in 2012. 

Prof. Ajayi was born on 26th of May 1929 and he  had his early education at St. Paul’s School, Ikole-Ekiti  and Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti in 1940.