Seven things you did not know about Prof Obaro Ikime

Renowned scholar and professor of history, Obaro Ikime, died at the age of 87 on Tuesday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Here are seven facts about the late professor.

1. He was born in 1936 in a village called Anibeze in Arohwa clan in the Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State.

2. He was a school prefect at the Government College, Ughelli in Delta State.

3. Ikime studied history at the University of Ibadan and graduated with Second Class Hons (Upper Division).

4. Among the books that he authored are ‘Leadership in the 19th Century Africa’ and ‘The Fall of Nigeria’, published in 1974 and 1977 respectively. His 1980 edited seminal work,
‘Groundwork of Nigerian History’, is widely adjudged as a reference literature on Nigeria and her peoples.

5. He got his PhD at 29 and become a professor at 37.

6. He retired in 1990 at age 54.

7. The regime of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida slammed him in military detention for 96 days in 1990, where he wore the same clothes all through and slept on the bare floor.

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