Citation of Professor Kehinde Onwochei Okonjo

Birth, Primary and Secondary Education
Kehinde Onwochei Okonjo was born on July 15, 1942 at Yaba, Lagos. He attended Government School, Ogwashi-Ukwu (Delta State) from 1949 to 1953, Ibadan Boys’ High School, Ibadan (primary section) from 1954 to 1955, and Banham Memorial School, Port Harcourt (1956). From 1957 to 1963 he was at King’s College, Lagos, where he completed his West African School Certificate (1961) and Cambridge Higher School Certificate (1963), specialising in Chemistry, Physics and Pure Mathematics. From 1958 to 1963 he was on a King’s College scholarship.

Tertiary and Quaternary Education
In 1964 Kehinde Okonjo was admitted into the University of Ibadan to study Chemistry on a Federal Government scholarship. He graduated BSc (Chemistry) in 1967. After a stint as a secondary school chemistry, physics and mathematics teacher in the Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State, he was once again admitted into the University of Ibadan in 1969. He pursued his postgraduate studies on a US National Institutes of Health studentship (1970-1972) and graduated PhD in Biophysical Chemistry in 1972. Between 1972 and 1973 he worked at the same university as a Research Fellow in the laboratory of his PhD supervisor, Professor John G. Beetlestone.

In August 1973 Dr. Okonjo proceeded for postdoctoral studies to the world-famous Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, with a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He specialised in the use of the temperature-jump technique to study very fast chemical reactions that take place in the millisecond and microsecond time ranges. In May 1975 Professor Okonjo took up appointment at the University of Benin but transferred to the University of Ibadan in September 1976 in order to pursue his research aspirations.

Fellowships, Grants and Research Supervision
Professor Okonjo won a number of research grants that enabled him to pursue his research objectives:
(i) five (5) grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) between 1975 and 2006;
(ii) one (1) grant from the Third World Academy of Sciences/UNESCO (1995), and
(iii) a competitive grant from the University of Ibadan Postgraduate School in 1995 (the only grant awarded for all science based disciplines).
(iv) In 1998 he won a Royal Society of Chemistry ‘Grant for International Authors’ in recognition of his publications in the Journal of the Chemical Society (Faraday Transactions), an international journal of physical chemistry based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. By the special grace of God, Professor Okonjo has made contributions to three (3) books and has to his credit three (3) articles in Nigerian journals and thirty-four (34) articles in international journals. These articles include those in the following high impact journals: The Journal of Molecular Biology, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the Journal of the Chemical Society (Faraday Transactions) and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (Proteins and Proteomics). He has supervised 27 MSc theses and seven (7) PhD theses.

Membership of Learned Societies
Professor Okonjo is a member of the following learned societies:
(i) The American Chemical Society;
(ii) The New York Academy of Sciences;
(iii) The Chemical Society of Nigeria; and
(iv) The Science Association of Nigeria (Life Member).

Family Life
Professor Okonjo is married to Chinwe Amalachukwu Okonjo Adigwe (M.A., Michigan). They are blessed with five (5) daughters: Dr. Awele Maduka-Ezeh (MD; MBBS, Ibadan; MPH, Harvard); Dr. Somawina Nwegbu (MBBS, Ibadan); Barrister Jidem Okonjo Adigwe (LLB, Ibadan; BL); Miss Odi Okonjo Adigwe (BSc, Ibadan); and Miss Ekenem Okonjo Adigwe (BSc, Ibadan).