A one-time Head of Programmes at the African Academy of Sciences, Nairobi, Kenya, and one of Nigeria’s leading experts on ecology, Professor James Kolawole Egunjobi, is dead. He died on Monday, July 11, 2016, aged 80.

Egunjobi who was with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) between 1977 and 1980, was formerly Head of the Department of Agricultural Biology at the University of Ibadan. He was involved in several local and international consulting assignments in his field of plant ecology during his active career. The first major assignment was with the United Nations Environmental Program between 1977 and 1980 and the second was with the African Academy of Sciences as head of programs from 1993 to 1995 also in Nairobi, Kenya

He was born in Emure Ekiti on August 22 1935 to Pa Jacob Egunjobi and Madam Janet Egunjobi

He attended St. Pauls Anglican Primary School Primary School Emure Ekiti and Christ’s School Ado -Ekitii between 1951 and 1955. After a stint teaching at Christ’s School and Ondo Boys High School, he gained admission to the University College Ibadan (UCI) in 1959 to study Botany, graduating in 1962.

After graduation he took up a teaching job at Oyemekun Grammar School before beginning a postgraduate programme in Botany at UCI.