Chike Obi
Chike
Obi
(April 17, 1921 – March 13, 2008) was a Nigerian politician, mathematician and
professor.
The
African
Mathematics Union
suggests that he was the first Nigerian to hold a doctorate in mathematics. Dr.
Obi's early research dealt mainly with the question of the existence of
periodic solutions of non-linear ordinary differential equations. He
successfully used the perturbation technique, and several of his publications
greatly helped to stimulate research interest in this subject throughout the
world and have become classics in the literature.
Early life and education
Obi
was educated in various parts of Nigeria before reading mathematics as an external student of the University of London. Immediately after his
first degree, he won a scholarship to do research study at Pembroke
College, Cambridge,
followed by doctoral studies at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology[citation
needed] in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, United States, becoming in 1950, the first Nigerian to
receive a PhD in mathematics.[citation
needed]
Career as mathematician
Obi
returned to lecture at the premier Nigerian University of Ibadan. He was soon diverted from
this by political activities. After the war, he returned to lecture in 1970 at
the University of Lagos where he quickly rose to
the senior academic role of a professor.
He
left Lagos to return to his root in the city of Onitsha, establishing the Nanna Institute for Scientific Studies.
Obi
had won the Sigvard
Eklund Prize
for original work in differential equation from the International
Centre for Theoretical Physics. He was a university teacher until his retirement as an Emeritus Professor in 1985.
In
1997, Obi became the third person to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem after Andrew Wiles and Richard
Taylor in
1994.[1] He also claimed to have found an elementary
proof to Fermat’s Last Theorem. This work was carried out
at his Nanna Institute for Scientific Studies in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria and published in Algebras, Groups and
Geometries.[2][3][4] However, a review of this proof published in
Mathematical Reviews indicates that it may have
been a false proof.[5][6]
Career in politics and activism
Obi
helped form the Dynamic Party of Nigeria, of which he served as its first
secretary-general. After the party merged with the larger National Council of
Nigerian and Cameroon, Obi was elected as part of the Nigerian delegation that
negotiated the country’s path to self-rule at two London conferences in 1957
and 1958.
After
Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, Obi was elected a legislator in the Eastern House of Assembly in 1960, he
refused to vacate his seat in the national legislature in Lagos, the Speaker of
the regional house ordered that Obi be physically removed by security agents.
This order was obeyed and Obi decided to commit himself to regional affairs.
In
1962, Obi was arrested and charged with treason in a closed trial organized by the then
national civilian government, who accused him and others, including the main
opposition leader at the time, Obafemi Awolowo, of plotting to overthrow the government. He
was later released for “want of evidence.”
When
the Nigerian Civil War broke out in 1967, Obi
sided with Biafra, working for the rebel leader Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu Ojukwu.
For a brief period in the 1970s when he served in the National Revenue Mobilization Commission.
Obi
derided religion and ethnic extremism, and the culture of corruption pervading the Nigerian
political class. He was a national newspaper columnist in the 1980s, writing
under the title, "I speak For the People."
Awards
A
visiting professor to the University of
Rhode Island,
USA, the University of Jos, Nigeria, and the Chinese Academy
of Science,
Obi was a recipient of the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) and a Fellow of the
Nigerian Academy of Science.
Personal life
Obi's
wife Belinda died in early 2010 a nurse and they are survived by their four
children. When Obi died in 2008 he was survived by his wife until 2010
References
· "World:
Africa - Africa Media Watch". BBC News Online. London, UK: BBC. 6 August 1999. Retrieved
30 August 2010.
· · C. Obi , "Fermat's Last Theorem", Algebras,
Groups and Geometries, Vol. 15, Special issue No. 3, 1998, p.289-298
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