Nigeria national anthem’s co-author Prof Ogunnaike dies of cancer

The Nigerian-born American scholar prior to his death was a chemical engineer and the William L. Friend Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University Of Delaware – a position he held for more than 25 years.

“Babatunde Ogunnaike 1956-2022. The death has occurred of Tunde Ogunnaike, whose words make up most (if not all) of stanza two of our national anthem. He died in the US where he’d been a professor for over 25 years and lately Dean of Engineering at Delaware University.” a tweet by Gbenro Adegbola, a publisher & tech enthusiast read.

Ogunnaike is the author and editor of several books, including Random phenomena: fundamentals of probability and statistics for engineers (2009) and Process dynamics, modeling and control (1994). His books, papers, and book chapters are used to educate engineers in instrumentation, systems, and control at many universities.

He was associate editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and the American Chemical Society’s Industrial & Engineering Chemistry.

About Babatunde Ogunnaike

He was born on March 26, 1956, in Ijebu Igbo, Ogun State, Nigeria. He attained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Lagos graduating with First Class Honours in chemical engineering in 1976.

He commenced academic work as a lecturer at the department of chemical engineering, University of Lagos, in 1982 and became senior lecturer and successively, associate professor of chemical engineering. He continued lecturing at the University of Lagos until 1988.

He furthered his studies and earned an M.Sc. degree in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering also from the same university in 1981.