The first Nigerian to be a professor of mathematics came from a royal house in Ekiti state. 

He is Professor Adegoke Olubummo, the son of Olorin of Orin, H.R.H Oba Adegoke Olubummo II. He became Nigeria’s first Professor of Mathematics in 1964. 

He was born on April 19, 1923, to be the honoured first literate son of Olorin of Orin, H.R.H. Oba William Adekolawolu Olubummo II and Olori Abigael Osarayi Olubummo in Orin Ekiti. As a royal child, Olubummo received quality education at Methodist schools where he worked (Ifaki Methodist School) as a pupil-teacher in 1937.

At the age of 14, Adegoke Olubummo was admitted into Wesley College in Ibadan, 1938. In 1942, he returned to his alma mater as a teacher and for the next few years, he taught at primary and secondary schools in Nigeria, Ghana (then Gold Coast) and Sierra Leone.

He earned his B.A. from Fourah College in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1950. Adegoke Olubummo earned his M.A. in Mathematics (1952) and his PhD (1955) from King’s College, University of Durham in Castle-Upon-Tyne, United Kingdom. 

In 1955, he began a career as a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics, University College, Ibadan, Nigeria, where he was promoted to (Full) Professor in 1964.

Dr. Olubummo was Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Ibadan for many years, where he was determined to create qualitative traditions in spite of the handicaps of development in a young African university.

In 1985, he retired from the University of Ibadan and became Dean of the Faculty of Science of Ondo State University.