Professor Ayo Olukotun, the Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Professorial Chair in Governance of the Department of Political Science at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye in Ogun State of Nigeria is dead.
A statement by Bukola Adeyemi Oyeniyi whose relationship with the deceased is not stated said he died on January 4th, 2023. The statement described the late Prof Olukotun as mentor, an enviable academic and a fine columnist whose works have contributed to the shaping of public policy and discourse in the past three decades.
Prof Olukotun lectured at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; the University of Lagos and Lagos State University. He was a visiting Professor of International Relations at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife as well as Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences at the Lead City University, Ibadan, all in Nigeria.
In journalism, he was the Chair of the Editorial Board of Daily Times, writing a penetrating weekly column that have appeared in several Nigerian newspapers such as Daily Times, The Guardian, Compass and Punch. Through his column, Professor Olukotun spoke truth to bad governance in Nigeria, always coming forth with alternative pathways to national redemption.
In scholarship, he is one of the three more known political scientists who made the mass media the subject of intellectual engagement. The other two are professors Adigun Agbaje and Wale Adebanwi. The statement did not indicate his age at the time of death, what killed him and where he died.
