Thread by @greaterbayo

Conversation With A Genius-2: Dr Omololu Olunloyo, Adegoke Adelabu Penkelemesi and How He Was Arrested At Libya

I had the immense privilege of being invited by Dr Omololu Olunloyo again this morning. I was there together with Babajide Olapade and some members of his team.

Dr Olunloyo had called me on phone a few days after I posted about our first meeting. He heard about the posts and he said as much today.

I explained to Baba that he owes the younger generation a duty to document his experience and life so we can learn from him.

You can't spend time with Dr Olunloyo and not be amazed at how God has specially endowed him. He told us today that he was the first Rector of The Polytechnic, Ibadan.

We opened our mouth as he regaled us with the details of how he built a road that connected South Campus to the North Campus in just one day.

It was Dr Olunloyo that introduced the traffic wardens (popularly called yellow fever) to Nigeria. He started the monthly environmental sanitation.

There was a particular old book Gospel In Ibadan written by Anna Hinderer of the St. Anne's, Molete fame where Anna documented her meeting with Akielle (Akinyele), the great great grandfather of Dr Omololu Olunloyo.

Akielle (that was how Anna spelled his name) was the first person to go to school in Ibadan. I also saw the picture of the first church in Ibadan (St. David's Cathedral, Kudeti) in the book. It was a mud house with thatched roof and not the grand building we have now.

There was a book Dr Olunloyo showed us- When We Were Young written by S. Biobaku. He read a particular part to us about Adegoke Adelabu of the Penkelemesi fame and I was very surprised to learn that he was previously called J.A. Sanusi.

Dr Olunloyo explained that Adelabu was sponsored to school by a Christian and he assumed the name of his sponsor at school but later reverted to his real name later. Dr Olunloyo described Adegoke Adelabu as the greatest politician ever to have come from Ibadan.

Adelabu left only 40 pounds in his account and a half-completed house at his demise. From the glow on Dr Olunloyo's face, it was evident that he adored Adelabu Penkelemesi.

He also showed us several books about the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi. Together, we read several passages in some of the books. He has a very cordial relationship with the Alaafin.

In a book commemorating the Senior Staff Club of UI at 50, Prof SB Lagundoye wrote about how Dr Olunloyo solved a particular difficult trigonometry problem and how he ran round Grier House Dormitory at GCI shouting 'Eureka' like Archimedes the ancient Greek mathematician.

Our discussion veered to the field of engineering and he narrated how he led a team of engineers to a meeting with the ADB in 2008 at Tunisia. ADB had claimed Oyo State Government owed the organization N100m.

Otunba Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala was the Governor then. The team was refused Visa and had to pass through Libya enroute Tunisia because there was unrest in Cote Divoire at that time.

Unfortunately, the Libyan Government arrested Dr Olunloyo and the team of engineers and locked them up. They were released after 17 hours. They later got to Tunisia and after an exhaustive deliberation with the ADB team, it was discovered that Oyo State did not owe ADB N100m.

I left him today wondering how different our world would be if we had documented history of his classmates at the Government College, Ibadan such as Ifedayo Oladapo, the man who designed the Third Mainland Bridge,

Prof Michael Bankole, the first person to successfully separate siamese twins in Nigeria, Demola Idowu, Editor of the now rested Sketch, Dr Owosina, regarded as the best orthopedic surgeon Nigeria has produced,

Sunny Jegede, a former Managing Director of Total, Dr Ikedionwu who was the Chief Medical Officer of the entire South East at a time, HK Aderibigbe who was MD of Livestock Feeds, Owoade Olukoya who was MD of Pfizer, Dr Lekan Are of Kakanfo Inn and others.

All these brains with Dr Olunloyo in the same class!

(Originally written on April 21, 2018)

Bayo Adeyinka

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