₦airaland Forum

Fulani Government at the centre indicts another Yoruba General. The last has not been heard

James Nwoye Adichie: Nigeria’s first professor of statistics
James Nwoye Adichie: Nigeria’s first professor of statistics
By Biyi Afonja

THE most celebrated group of people in Nigeria are political office holders, business tycoons no matter their source of wealth and occasionally top executives and professionals. J.N.Adichie does not fall into any of the enumerated categories. He, like many other academic giants in Nigeria remain, by and large, unsung heroes. I believe that Nigerians should learn to celebrate people like him along with several other distinguished retired and active academic geniuses while they are still alive. Such celebrations will no doubt inspire our youths, who by and large, through the corrupting influence of our society do not seem to believe in academia. I am writing this piece to celebrate Adichie.

James Nwoye Adichie was born on March 1, 1932 in Abba, Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State. After passing the Advanced Level General Certificate of Education (‘A’ level GCE) examinations in Pure mathematics, Applied mathematics, English and Latin, he was admitted into the University College Ibadan (UCI) now the University of Ibadan (UI) in 1957 to read mathematics. In those days when the UCI was a college of the University of London and was the only university institution in Nigeria, it was a remarkable achievement for a student to be admitted into the College. He graduated B.A. Mathematics of the University of London in 1960 among the top three students in a class of 13. At that time a student was awarded the B.A. degree if his/her A-Level subject combination included arts subjects in addition to the mathematics subject; and the B.Sc degree if his/her subjects combination consisted of mathematics and science subjects.

Soon after graduating, he went on to lecture first at the Nigerian College of Science and Technology, Enugu, and later at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) until September 1963, when he proceeded to the prestigious University of California at Berkeley, USA. This is one of the greatest centres of statistical excellence in the USA if not in the world. In a record time of three years he earned a Ph.D. degree in statistics in 1966, the first Nigerian to do so. He promptly returned to the UNN and 10 years later, in October 1976, he was promoted a Professor of Statistics, the first of his kind in Nigeria.

Adichie’s main area of research is Non-Parametric Methods of Statistical Analysis. These methods seek to develop new methods of analysis that are valid under realistic assumptions. He was such a renowned scholar in this field that he was invited by some leading British universities to deliver a series of lectures on his work. The universities are Cambridge, London (Imperial College), Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Glasgow. At different points in his brilliant academic career, he was a visiting fellow at the University of Sheffield, England and a visiting professor at the San Diego State University, California, U.S.A.

Apart from delivering many brilliant academic papers at several workshops, conferences and seminars locally and abroad, Adichie has published numerous scholarly papers in reputable learned journals and has served as a reviewer for some of them including the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Annals of Mathematical Statistics, the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, etc. He is a member of many learned societies including the International Statistical Institute (ISI) of which he was the first Nigerian to be elected a full ordinary member in 1978; the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Mathematical Association of Nigeria of which he was once the general secretary, to mention a few. Incidentally, the ISI with headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, is the world apex statistical organization. He was the first editor of the Journal of the Statistical Association of Nigeria and at one time an associate editor of the ABACUS – Journal of the Mathematical Association of Nigeria.

At the UNN where he was a distinguished teacher of statistics for 33 years, he was the supervisor of the first post-graduate student to obtain a master’s degree of the UNN in 1971 and in 1973; helped in the establishment of the department of statistics, one of the first two such departments in Nigeria, the other one being that of the UI. As the first head of that department, Adichie spent the next six years nurturing it to enviable heights. He was again made the head of the department from 1985-1988. He served as the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Nsukka Campus of the university.

As an elected member of Council of the University, he made tremendous contributions to the progress of the university through his activities in the various committees of the Council and some other non-Council Committees. His activities are not limited to the UNN. He served as external examiner in mathematics and statistics at various Nigerian universities. Apart from his contribution to the development of statistics in the Nigerian university system, he played a key role in the development of the National Mathematics Centre (NMC). He, with three others, prepared for the Federal Government in 1987/88 a proposal for setting up the NMC. He later served as member of a Representative Group of Mathematical Scientists that met the Technical Expert Committee Visitation Panel for the upgrading of the NMC to the status of an International Centre for Excellence. He served the Centre in various capacities. He was a member of its academic board, a member of two of its strategic committees, and professor and coordinator of its statistics programme.. He organised the Centre’s first Foundation Post-Graduate Course on mathematical statistics and the first Foundation Post-Graduate Course on Exact and Asymptotic Statistical Inference.

Adichie took to the international fora his passion for giving statistical education a pride of place in the curricula of Nigerian and indeed of African countries. On several occasions, he delivered papers relating to Statistical education and training not only in Nigeria but also in the whole of Africa. In the administration of statistics in the Nigerian public service, Adichie’s name will also feature prominently. He was a member of the National Advisory Council on Statistics and served as the Chairman of the Committee for the Reorganisation of the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS) which is now called the National Bureau of Statistics.

It is interesting to note that Adichie is not the only one in his family to have scored a first in his chosen career. Ifeoma, his wife of 46 years was the first female registrar of the UNN while his fifth child, Chimamanda, is the first young female Nigerian literary voice to be world-acclaimed. She has received many international awards and nominations for her literary works. Having demonstrated the main reason for writing about Adichie – that of giving honour to whom honour is due, I have two other reasons which, though, may appear personal, do speak volumes about the personality and integrity of the man. .As already mentioned, Adichie and I first met and became friends at the UCI. In fact, one of our lecturers, Chike Obi, who became famous for being the first Nigerian holder of a doctorate degree in mathematics, used to call us brothers because he thought that we looked so much alike..

Since graduation, we have crossed each other’s path at the professional level on various occasions. I will mention only two of them. Adichie was one of the sponsors of my nomination in 1980 for election as a member of the ISI. With my election, I became the second Nigerian to be so honoured, he having been elected in 1978.

When I was the Chief Statistical Training Adviser at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, he requested some information needed for the preparation of a paper to be presented at an international conference on the teaching of statistics. I gladly obliged. Lo and behold, he included my name as a co-author of the paper. What a mark of intellectual integrity? My last, but by no means the least important reason is that every now and then I get embarrassed when I am introduced in public as the first Nigerian Professor of Statistics. Let Nigerians now be informed – James Nwoye Adichie is the first Nigerian Professor of Statistics! He is now retired and lives in Nsukka.

Afonja, the second Nigerian professor of statistics, lives in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

source: Nigerian Guardian News

Zoogeria is on its last leg. Everything about her is fraud

attacker321:
Omenka/progressive01 oya come and shout sai baba.

You just permutated the attacker231. Nairalanders Unu ga-egbu mmadu ooo

Keneking:
Let them go, after all, the economy is already down. Worse condition since the days of Lord Lugard.

Where are your funny pictures you normally use to abuse GEJ?
Your tone this time around tells me that the change is really affecting you badly

Keneking sef

oduastates:
What difference has the oil ever made?

Looting and almajirism

Efforts in futility, the train has left the station

HungerBAD:
This is Bad.

We are losing this much?no wonder the economy is very shaky. These Militants right? i have a suggestion. Let the States take the punishment for this, and as mean as this may Sound, i am sure it will work.

The Governors are the Chief Security Officers of their States, they know these guys causing this problems. If this much money is getting lost, Monies allocated to this States should be reduced too from the Federal Coffers.

If this is done, this Governors will help flush out all these Militants.

I wonder how you guys reason. Do you know how much Zoogeria spent on fighting the ragtags called bokoharam in the North East? Are you aware that billions of naira went down the drain which would have provided good roads and portable water in the south? While the almajiri Governors in the North East got what belong to them as monthly allocations without any deductions.
Hypocrisy is the highest form of deception which is a consequent for zombeism.

Abdulrahman Dambazzau entrenching corruption in the Ministry of Interior since October 2015. Buhari anti-graft war is a facade

Heard she is back from USA, but don't know how true it is cos US County sheriffs have been laying seige in a bid to jail her alongside with Jefferson

Illiterate, corrupt and insensitive leaders are the bane of Zoo called Zoogeria. David Cameron was right when he described Zoogeria as being fantastically corruption country

...and the lame duck in Aso rock did as if nothing happened. Zoogeria is on the brink.

Gilat Satcom has revealed that it is providing voice and high-speed data to ten villages in the states of Adamawa, Borno, Kano, Katsina, Oyo and Yobe in the North East of Nigeria.
According to the company, its Village Island system has been deployed in each village and provides a full communications system that includes VSATs, Wi-Fi routers, solar-power, two communal tablets per village as well as service management.
The company further revealed that it is also providing the satellite connectivity to its VSATs in each village. The integrated Wi-Fi networks then provide local connectivity for data and VoIP to the communal tablets as well as to devices – phones, PCs, tablets and laptops – already owned by villagers and local businesses. The entire system is housed in a purpose-built communications block (the Community Hub ) in each village.
Gilat Satcom’s Village Island solution was chosen by Nigeria’s Total IT Solutions as the infrastructure and service platform for the Community Hub networks. Total IT Solutions are currently rolling out the networks on behalf of Nigeria’s Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) which was established to facilitate the extension of ICT and network services to rural, unserved and underserved areas of the country.
The latest figures from the USPF are that around 36.8 million people in Nigeria live in areas that are more than 5km from a BTS and are therefore considered underserved or unserved.
Muhammad Yahya Sanda, CEO of Total IT Solutions, said: “The 10 village networks already exceed my expectations – and, most importantly, the expectations of the villagers. We all have friends and family in rural areas and now they are connected to us and to education, medical services, commerce, and so much more.
Gilat Satcom’s Village Island is an extremely well-designed, self-contained system and key to the success of this project. Village Island enables us to build low-cost networks which can easily scale with demand.”
Following the success of these networks, Total IT Solutions plans to rollout hundreds more across rural Nigeria using Gilat Satcom’s Village Island system.
Mr. Eran Yoran, CMO and Head of Business Development at Gilat Satcom said: “Providing affordable access in rural Africa is an ongoing theme for the telecoms industry. We have worked for a long time to provide a solution which is both affordable for the village end-user and profitable for the entire supply chain.”
Gilat Satcom’s Village Island portfolio provides all the components required to build extremely efficient and cost-effective self-contained networks. It has been specifically developed to provide the Internet, VoIP and Video over IP over an affordable private satellite network with prices for connectivity for individual villagers starting from $1 a month. These networks can easily be scaled to service hundreds of users with a variety of disposable incomes.
http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2016/07/nigeria-10-rural-villages-receive-voice-and-high-speed-data-services/

Cc Lalasticlala

Damage control strategy, dead on arrival. Don't be fooled!

Lies, a poor defense from Garba Shehu and his lying crew to the president on new media.

Transparency ko transcurreency ni

Another witch hunt from the fraudulent presidency

mrhansome12:
Them not me you don ever in your widest dream see my pm ? If I no get job sending pm will be the last thing i will ever do.

Screenshot to validate your claim

obailala:
When you continue praising and glorifying people blowing up pipelines taking gas to power stations, power will continue to drop, and there's nothing buhari can do about that . Kontinuu!

The way you comment atimes though. Smh

Badboiz:
Technocrats ko, Infinixcrats ni . Mtcheeeeew

Ooni:
my brother, there is no need lying and boasting. People are dying here in osun. We better tell people the truth so that if they can send us relief materials to help us defeat hunger they will do it Strike, poverty hunger is everywhere here in osun

Unu ga-egbu mmadu ooo

We the Yorubas are proud of our heritage, the Op is a Igbo

nduchucks:
Where are the customary brown roofs?

The Republic is intact
The real Ibadan not a computer-generated images of pseudo city of Ibadan

APC and Buhari albatross. The only man in South south that bullied Amaechi and Dakuku to submission despite their FG might

Satisfied that it had weathered the storm over the 2016 budget, the Federal Government has raised a special committee that is saddled with the task of monitoring its smooth implementation in order to give Nigerians real value. The committee, according to the Budget and National Planning Minister, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, is headed by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who is effectively saddled with the task of tracking the performance of the budget and reporting back to the President for necessary action.

This comes after a breakthrough appeared to have been made between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the budget. The two sides met on Tuesday night for some hours and deliberated on the controversial areas and resolved the thorny areas. The meeting, according to competent source, was to deliberate on grey areas that had forced the NASS to return the fiscal document to the executive and generated untold tension in the land over the weeks. Among those said to have attended the meeting, were ministers responsible for finance and national Planning, the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives as well as officials responsible for revenue generation.

Also in attendance were heads of Finance and Appropriate committees in the National Assembly and other officials of the budget office. A top source close to the meeting told Saturday Vanguard on Friday that it was ‘probably the last in the series’ to break the deadlock in the budget row even though it was the third to be held within the last one month. “We are confident that a solution had been found to the controversial issues in the budget document before the NASS. The truth of the matter is that the controversy arose because some people did not want to go with President Buhari’s Zero-budget having been used to the ‘envelop system”. “Despite all the furore over the budget, the truth remains that there is nothing wrong with it; the final figure is not affected despite what some persons tried to add to it.

“Hopefully, a common ground has now been found that would pave the way for the passage of the budget within the next two weeks so as to move the country forward,” the source said. Udoma while receiving a delegation from the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) expressed optimism that this year’s budget would bring about economic growth for Nigerians.

The Minister said the budget was structured according to the realities of the Nigerian economy; as the country could no longer continue to depend on only oil to fund its budget. Udoma said, “Our 2016 Budget is designed to have capital component of 30 per cent that will reflate our economy and provide Infrastructural growth for investors to leverage upon.”

Acknowledging the private sector as the engine room of development, Senator Udoma told the delegation that the present administration is fully committed to building an investment friendly environment for the organized private sector, which is part of why this year’s budget gave prominence to infrastructure development. He agreed that the private sector required sound and effective infrastructure to operate and assured that government was doing everything possible to ensure that the engine room of the economy runs smoothly.

This desire of government, he explained, was why it deliberately decided that this year’s budget must align with planning needs, pointing out that the structure of the budget is very good as it does not only address development needs but does not entirely depend on oil as its only source of funding. He assured that Government was fashioning out policies that would encourage export and domestic production in its determined effort to ensure that most of the things consumed in the country are produced in Nigeria.

Earlier, the national president of NACCIMA, Chief Bassey E. Edem had applauded the Zero-based budget system adopted by the Federal Government and particularly the diversification policy of the present administration. While stressing the need for a focused infrastructure development effort to better the state of roads, rail and electricity in the country, the NACCIMA president advised to give priority attention to agriculture and solid minerals development as these were capable of providing alternative sources of bulk income for the country.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/02/2016-budget-presidency-nass-break-deadlock-as-vp-osinbajo-heads-monitoring-committee/

The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has told the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to declare wanted the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN).

Sagay said this during an interview with our correspondent on Friday while reacting to Adoke’s open letter to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.


Punch

Eniola Akinkuotu

The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has told the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to declare wanted the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN).

Sagay said this during an interview with our correspondent on Friday while reacting to Adoke’s open letter to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

In the said letter, Adoke, who has refused to honour an EFCC invitation since December last year, said he would not do so because there was a plan by some of his political opponents to embarrass him in Nigeria.

The ex-minister, who claimed to be undergoing an academic programme in the Netherlands, was invited by the anti-graft agency for his alleged role in the $2bn Malabu oil deal.

Adoke, who said he had finished writing his exams, said he would not honour the EFCC invitation.

But Sagay said Adoke was testing the collective will of Nigerians by refusing to honour the EFCC invitation.

He said if Adoke was not guilty, he should return to Nigeria to clear his name rather than stay abroad issuing statements.

Sagay said, “Anyone that is invited by the EFCC is duty-bound to make himself available. It is just like the police inviting you and the moment you don’t honour the invitation, they will arrest you. So, it is a sign of respect to invite a person.

“In my view, if his hands are clean, why does he care if he will be embarrassed or not? You cannot be embarrassed if your hands are clean because whoever tries to embarrass you will be the one to be embarrassed when the truth is out.

“So, his response looks like a guilty one and he has stayed away from the country to avoid answering questions and so in my view, he has to be declared wanted, the International Police must go after him and wherever he is found, he should be extradited to Nigeria.”

http://www.punchng.com/declare-adoke-wanted-sagay-tells-efcc/

Cc Iroh88 aka Omenka

Clerverly:
**** Did you vote for him before?

How do you know who voted Buhari and who didn't?

MrEverest:
Oh my God, such fine skyscraper! It would have been great if he had built it in Awka or Onitsha, would activities in Umuchukwu support the optimum use of that gigantic biulding? Kudos to the owner!

That building might be for offices in a view to strategically develop the area thereby dicongesting Awka and Onitsha Metropolis

I know my Akpokuedike 1 of Aguleri is a great technocrat and master strategist who promised to make Anambra an Eldorado .

Anambra adigo mma

Shagari