By Jimoh Olorede

Nigeria is a great country that continues to suffer from world’s negative stereotypes which affect ‘nation-worth’, self-confidence and self-esteem of many Nigerians. The global perception held of the country is a stereotypical mindset that “nothing will ever change”, reflecting a fatalistic apathy that normalizes corruption, poor leadership and systemic failures, discouraging accountability and reform.

They always define the country solely by poverty, corruption and violent conflict, ignoring its economy, creativity and resilience as exemplified by many of its good citizens like Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, incumbent Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, immediate-past President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), who recently received the African Lifetime Achievement Award, Professor Wole Soyinka, a globally active Nobel Laureate, public intellectual and cultural spokesperson, and among many others, the newly appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture and Development Studies Iragbiji, (FUADSI) Osun State, Professor Charles Oluwaseun Adetunji, Fellow, Royal Society of Biology (United Kingdom), Fellow, Biotechnology Society of Nigeria, Fellow, Nigerian Society for Microbiology, Fellow, Nigerian Young Academy, Fellow and immediate-past President, and now Chairman of Governing Council, Nigerian Bioinformatics and Genomics Network Society. 

Charles Adetunji, who is also President, Mycotoxicology Society of Nigeria, is a young Nigerian Professor, but an enigmatic precursor of modern science across the world, who professed science and was awarded Stanford University’s “2025 Prestigious Career-Long List of World’s Top 2% Scientists”, “Single-Year Most Impactful List of Distinguished Professors Around the Globe”, and “No. 1 Scientist in Agricultural and Biological Sciences from 58 Countries Across African Universities”. He has an i10-index of over 303 on Google Scholar and has contributed significantly to global research in Microbiology, Biotechnology, and sustainable agricultural systems.

According to ‘ELSEVIER’, a global leader in information and analytics for scientific and healthcare communities, four of Professor Adetunji’s open access articles published between 2020-2022 were “linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, helping to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges.” Similarly, ‘ScholarGPS’, a US-based academic analytics platform that ranks scholars and institutions worldwide, honoured him as a “2025 Highly Ranked Scholar —Prior Five Years” in recognition of his exceptional productivity, noteworthy impact and quality of scholarly work in the top 0.05% of scholars in the Specialty worldwide.

It’s strongly believed that the exceptional creativity and resilience that Professor Charles Adetunji, who is also the Vice President and Nigerian Country Director, Genetics Society of West Africa, typifies and exemplifies, and his biotechnological inventions and scientific discoveries would soon erode, diminish and destroy the ‘stereotypical weapons’ always fashioned against us as a nation, as they (those who claim superiority over us) always stand in awe, and hail him when he nails whatever they fail to fix in the field of science. He has participated in over 100 international scientific conferences worldwide as Keynote Speaker, Plenary Speaker, Invited Speaker, Lead Guest Speaker, Scientific Session Chair, Panelist and Poster Judge. His numerous giant strides in his chosen career of academia, spanning international collaborations, representation, academic leadership, huge research grants facilitation and international recognition as world-best Scientist have substantially contributed to the global recognition and reputational growth of Nigeria across the globe.

This great Scholar of magnificent repute has been actively engaged in securing and managing competitive national and international research grants under the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), National Research Fund (NRF) thereby contributing to institutional research profile and national relevance. 

Recently, he won a highly competitive international grant funded by the Norwegian Research Council in strategic collaboration with leading global institutions, including University of Oslo, Norway, Nagoya University, Japan, Dongguk University, Republic of Korea, and Edo State University Iyamho, Nigeria, before his recent appointment with the Federal University of Agriculture and Development Studies, Iragbiji (FUADSI).

Congratulations to FUADSI, and especially to the Vice Chancellor of the new University, Professor Mufutau Olaoye Atayese, on his visionary foresight, sound judgment, ingenuous perception, proactive attraction, and appointment-retention of this globally reputed Professor of impacts, Charles Oluwaseun Adetunji, who is a veteran Book Series Editor and Editorial Board Member for several, highly reputed, major academic publishers including Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, and Springer, with over 900 scholarly publications, including 60 books, over 600 book chapters and other numerous peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals — Nature Medicine, Nature Communication, Earth & Environment,  and The Lancet, among other international indexed journals, as his Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC).

As an Instructor at The University of People, Pasadena, California, USA, he is a professor of repute who professes others to become a professor. He is an External Examiner and Academic Assessor for several national and international institutions some of which include Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, University of Helsinki Finland, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Covenant University, Ota, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Ilorin, Kwara State University, Molete, and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, among others, where he contributes to postgraduate training, research quality assurance, and academic standards.

Professor Adetunji is the General Coordinator and Supervisor of the “1000 Scientific Trials Programme” under Harvest Harmonics, USA, where he oversees scientific coordination across 58 African countries as the Country Representative for Nigeria. He is also a Consultant to the Government of the Republic of Serbia (Europe) as Project Peer Reviewer for the Science Fund, where he evaluates competitive science proposals in Microbiology, Nanotechnology, Food Science, Post-harvest Technology, and Biotechnology.

The newly appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor, FUADSI is a Senior Expert Consultant, African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), and Senior Expert appointee of South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF), where he evaluates quality, impact, and research standing of scientists in the country’s Microbiology sphere of science. He is an Expert Reviewer for the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium, Expert Reviewer for the Fundacion General CSIC (Spain), Expert Reviewer for the BIENVENUE+ Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme coordinated by the Region of Brittany, France, Expert Reviewer for the DSI/NRF South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI), where he assesses the performance of distinguished professors in Biotechnology, and a strong Member of the College of Experts (UK), where he serves on the selection committee of the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF).

However, what makes Professor Charles Oluwaseun Adetunji distinguishably unique amongst his peers goes beyond his accomplishments in the field of science, not even his “2024 and 2025 Top Scholar” ranking by ScholarGPS (USA), “Top 0.05% of scholars” globally out of over 30 million profiles among many #Scholars in Life Sciences, “Top 0.05% #Scholars # Microbiology”, or being “Top 0.05% #Scholars # Microorganism studies in the last 5 years.” What we celebrate in him is his unassuming lifestyle as always reflected in his good spirits, selflessness, positive disposition, mentorship, impacts, humility and modesty, which truly depict him as an enigma without stigma.