Editorial: Professor Gabriel Ajayi (1941 - 2004)

Nigeria’s very limited pool of professionals was last
December further depleted through the passage of the
Director General (DG) of National Information
Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Professor
Gabriel Olalere Ajayi. Ajayi, renowned academic,
professor of engineering, teacher and administrator
fell gallantly to death leaving behind mass of
uncompleted tasks and a vision that those who love the
country, as he did, would do well to fulfill.

Ajayi was the founding DG of the NITDA and in spite of
the controversies that surrounded his emergence, ‘the
.ng man,’ as a section of the media would later dub
him, went about his task with a zeal and a sense of
altruism uncommon in our national polity.

He was a man driven by a rare commitment to the
building of the Nigeria’s IT space. In those things he
believed in, he committed his time, vast experience,
and integrity often at the risk of his health. Perhaps
his fault was too much zeal but not without
understanding as the Biblical Paul would chastise his
fellows Jews for being steeled in zealotry but over
little understanding of the faith they professed.

Ajayi professed strong faith in Nigeria’s ability to
address its socio-economic challenges through IT; and
he had an excellent understanding of the theme of his
task. With over 80 published scientist papers on
engineering and computers in serious academic
journals, Ajayi proved to be a researcher and a don
par excellence. He had undergone an intellectually
demanding process at Manchester (UK) and OAU (Ife,
Nigeria) among other educational centres to acquire
the discipline for which his credentials as a teacher
and a guardian were not in doubt.

Nigeria had the singular benefit of having this man
act as the Primal Guardian of its publicly structured
IT evolution. As a guardian, he helped raise
government’s consciousness on IT and subsequent usage
within the public sector. The testimony is in the
PSNet initiative. He advanced the necessity to create
a common and broad framework for sectoral realisation
of the National IT Policy and he worked tirelessly for
this.

Under him, NITDA was often left cash-strapped by
government but Ajayi did not allow this to undermine
set-objectives. He inspired a NITDA workforce where
individuals learn to sacrifice for the state rather
than rip the state of its resources. For this, he
inspired an external team of experts and stakeholders,
who, in spite of NITDA’s poor financial state, still
committed their time and personal resources to work in
the committees set up by NITDA to draw up IT action
plans for various sectors of the economy.

History would speak of Ajayi’s faults like all mortals
who have their shortcomings. But prosperity would not
deny Professor Gabriel Olalere Ajayi his place in the
scheme of things: He was a man who, in spite of the
inadequacies of his environment, lived for his
country, worked diligently for his country and died
for his country. The zeal of the nation possessed
him; Nigeria must not forget this. The moral is to
pick up the baton from where he left it.

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