Chike Obi

Chike Obi was born on April 7, 1921 in Zaria, Nigeria. He attended St Patrick's Primary School, Zaria, and Christ the King College, Onitsha. He obtained his B.Sc. in Mathematics with Special Honours from the University of London as an external student in 1946. He then won a scholarship to do research study at Pembroke College, Cambridge, followed by doctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, becoming in 1950, the first Nigerian to receive a PhD in mathematics. His research focused on the existence of periodic solutions of non-linear ordinary differential equations, and he published several papers and books on this topic. He also claimed to have found an elementary proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but his proof was later shown to be incorrect. Obi returned to Nigeria in 1950 and became a lecturer at the University of Ibadan. He also became involved in politics and joined the Dynamic Party of Nigeria, of which he served as its first secretary-general. He contested in several elections but never won a seat. He was a vocal critic of the British colonial rule and advocated for a secular and democratic Nigeria. He was arrested and detained several times for his political activities. After the Nigerian Civil War, he resumed his academic career and became a professor at the University of Lagos. He retired as an emeritus professor in 1985 and founded the Nanna Institute for Scientific Studies in Onitsha. He received several awards and honors for his contributions to mathematics and Nigerian politics, including the Sigvard Eklund Prize from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. He died on March 13, 2008 in Onitsha at the age of 86. He was survived by his wife Belinda and four children, one of whom is Mustafa Chike-Obi, a prominent banker and economic adviser.