Prof. Ayodele Awojobi, The Akoko Giant
Most cars you know of, even those million dollar cars, have a steering wheel placed on what is taken to be the ‘front’ of the car, and regardless of how many horses are galloping in the engine, driving in the reverse gear is inherently less powerful than in the forward direction. Then you also have problems with handling, visibility, and turning around is not so possible in confined spaces.
How do you correct this issue?
In the hypothetical Boz, the car is made bi-directional because it is electrically powered and its motors will spin either way comfortably. This is also the premise of Patent WO 2011098857 A1, which envisions an electric vehicle capable of omnidirectional driving.
But is there a fossil-fuel powered vehicle that is capable of bi-directional driving?
As it so happens, there is one such car, under the custody of the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Lagos.
The Autonov 1, as the car is known, is the legacy of one Professor Ayodele Awojobi (born 12 March 1937), a master tinkerer, a social activist, an academic.
Until it became the Autonov 1, the vehicle was just another Leyland Jeep. When it fell into the hands of Prof. Ayodele Awojobi, he fixed up another steering wheel at the ‘back’ of the vehicle, hooked it up with the ‘back’ axle, and then set up a mechanism to connect this steering wheel to the Jeep’s gear system.
In effect then, front or back is what you decided, as this car is bidirectional; what’s more, there is a mechanism to swing your seat from one steering wheel to the other, so there is no need to lumber across the vehicle to get to the other steering wheel.
There are no schematics for the Autonov 1, so unless UNILAG allows for the vehicle to be reverse-engineered, no one but the good professor knows how he did it, and he’s resting in peace.
Prof. Ayodele Awojobi’s Autonov 1 was actually the second of his automobile novelties, both of which he built in the 70s; his first was his family car, an Opel Olympia Rekord.
Since independence, Nigeria, a former British colony, had been driving on the left (steering wheel on the right). But in 1972, it shifted its driving orientation to the right (steering wheel in the left).
So what does the Professor of Mechanical Engineering decide to do?
Instead of enduring life with a vehicle designed for Right Hand Drive on roads that now set for Left Hand Drive, Professor Ayodele Awojobi took apart his car in order to move the steering wheel from the right to the left.
But as surprising as these eccentricities are, in some ways they were to be expected from him; after all, he had been displaying academic brilliance since he was young, passing with distinction in primary, high school and the post-high school General Certificate of Examination. The distinctions were in each and every subject taken.
With this exemplary record, Ayodele Awojobi was awarded a government scholarship to study at the Ahmadu Bello University, where in 1962 he received his first class honors in BSc. Mechanical Engineering. Four years later, on yet another government scholarship by virtue of his outstanding academic performance, he left the Imperial College London with a PhD Mechanical Engineering.
With the PhD, he came back to teach at UNILAG, but returned to the Imperial College London to conduct research (he produced at least 10 papers on vibration, ranging from those on elastic material to the ground).
In 1974, he was back at UNILAG where he had been promoted to an associate professor. He didn’t hold that position for long, for he was promptly promoted to full professorship in a week after the university learned that, for his extensive research on vibrations, he had received a Doctor of Science (DSc.) Mechanical Engineering from the Imperial College London (in the US, the DSc. is on nearly the same pedestal as the PhD, regarded as a variant of it, but its rarity says otherwise). With this appointment, he became the youngest professor at UNILAG, aged 37yo, and I can’t see anything that says that record has been broken (though, if one Olaoluwa Oluwadara, PhD, chooses to stay, he could possibly usurp the title; he’s 25, and a story for another day).
But besides being an academic giant, Prof. Ayodele Awojobi was a fervent patriot and a social activist, celebrating his birthday with powerful political speeches denouncing the establishment, which over time shifted from General Obasanjo’s military (1976-1979) rule to President Shehu Shagari’s civilian stint (1979-1983). He questioned the disappearance of federal money, the state of society, and the excesses of the government.
When Shagari was elected president, Prof. Ayodele Awojobi paired with Prof. Chike Obi and attempted to prove mathematically that Shagari’s win was a sham, even taking their grievance to court. The court dismissed their calculations despite the clarity of their methods, at which point he took to studying law books in the hope of qualifying as a barrister in order to better battle the federal government of Nigeria, which he had been suing unsuccessfully since Shagari became president despite failing to win outright 25% of the votes in 13 states; in Kano state, he had won 25% in 2/3 of the state, not the whole state as required.
But he never got to become a barrister, succumbing to what his son, now a medical doctor, describes only as a protracted illness on September 23rd 1984, just a little over 47 years old. His younger brother, Eng. Busola Awojobi, however believes that he was felled by juju thrown at him by a supporter of a political contestant he had gone to serve papers in 1983.
He is survived by five children and his wife, who despite not making as loud ripples as Prof. Ayodele Awojobi, are committed to their various professions, taking Nigeria towards that trajectory of achieving a critical mass of educated and learned citizens with whom you could productively engage in constructive politics, not the populist politicking that is still largely peddled across Africa to this day.
Africa Global News Publication
