Dr Aminat Ige is a mathematician, a poet, a public speaker, a humanitarian, and a former banker. As a mathematics lecturer at the Lagos State University (LASU), she recently completed her PhD programme at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), emerging as the best doctoral thesis award winner of the university. In this interview by Kingsley Alumona, she speaks about her PhD journey and other issues.
You are a mathematician, banker, poet, humanitarian, and motivational speaker. How did it all begin?
It all began when I was a young girl in primary school. I was assumed to talk too much. I liked rhymes and memorised a lot. My speaking and humanitarian endeavours began when I was a kid. For poetry, I discovered that when I was in secondary school. I did very well in arithmetic in primary school but discovered I was going to do something around maths in secondary school. So, I studied mathematics to PhD level. I went into banking in 2014 and returned to the academia in 2018.
As a secondary school student, what inspired you to study mathematics?
I loved calculations from primary school. In secondary school, I was also doing well and had a good mathematics teacher who further grounded my interest in mathematics.
I didn’t study Mathematics by accident, though I wanted to study Electronic Engineering. Then, we used to have Electronic and Computer Engineering with Mathematics option. I wanted Electronic and Computer Engineering with Mathematics option, but didn’t gain admission into the schools that offered it. So, I settled for Mathematics at the Lagos State University (LASU).
You recently trended for being the best doctoral thesis award winner of the University of Lagos. While conducting the research, did you envisage your thesis being the best or winning an award? And how did the feat make you feel?
I didn’t expect that my doctoral thesis would be the best. I didn’t even know where the research was leading. One thing with good research is that you keep working on it. If you know the beginning and end of research from the beginning, then that is probably not a genuine and novel work.
The feat made me feel happy, great, and fulfilled. All the labour didn’t go down the drain. It didn’t only give me a PhD, it also gave me something extra.
On what criteria did the university judge your doctoral thesis to be the best out of the theses of the other 155 PhD graduands? And what are the benefits associated with the award?
I don’t know the criteria. However, the best thesis starts with you presenting before a board called the Academic Planning Committee (APC) board. You present your thesis to a lot of professors, many of whom are not in your field. Your ability to present in a way that people who are not in your field can still understand some parts of your work is very important. We also have guidelines for the thesis like fonts and citation style. Above all, an external examiner comes to examine a PhD candidate during viva. The report of the external examiner is very important too. So, I presented before the board and knew I did well from their feedback, and the external examiner was impressed as well.
For the benefits associated with the award, all I know now is that I have an award and what was announced was that I have a N200,000 reward from the university alumni and N25,000 thousand naira from the Professor Sofoluwe award. I don’t know if there are other ones and their values. Aside from that, the award is going to give me good leverage in my future endeavours.
What is the title of your doctoral thesis and what were the major findings from it?
It is mathematics and I wouldn’t want to bore you with much detail. However, the title of my thesis is ‘O-Metric Spaces: A Novel Unification and Generalisation of Metric-Type Spaces with Applications in Fixed Point Theory’. The ‘O’ is from the first letter of my middle name, Olawumi. My two supervisors’ middle names begin with an ‘O’ too — Olajire and Oludara.
The O-Metric Space is a new novel space. It’s significant because, for every other metric type space in literature, it’s more robust. The O-Metric unifies almost all of them and generalises the result on them.
What were the major challenges you faced while doing the doctoral programme?
There are always challenges. There is no definite study space for PhD students on campus. Whenever I was on campus, I studied in my supervisors’ offices, with students going in and out, but I managed. I was determined to get things done.
What area of mathematics do you specialise in and how do you utilise your expertise in this area to solve societal problems?
My area of mathematics is Functional Analysis. Functional Analysis is a branch of pure mathematics, and my thesis is in the area of fixed-point theory.
There are results in fixed-point theory that are related to real-life situations. I remember engineer Sobamowo who used fixed-point results to detect who the murderer was in a murder case. It is also applicable in machine learning, robotics, and finance.
As a mathematics lecturer at LASU, what new ideas and innovations are you bringing from the University of Lagos to impact your students and colleagues?
Already, my students are benefiting. My research area is very novel and I have told my students that if any of them is interested in that area, there is a lot of work left to be done. Having a PhD means my delivery of lectures is better. So, I’m going to do a lot of things differently and better than I used to do them. For my colleagues, every impactful and valuable knowledge I have picked from UNILAG, I would be sharing with them.
Have you thought of becoming the vice chancellor (VC) of LASU or any university?
Many people pray for me to become VC. I don’t look at positions. I continue to do my best and when the time comes, if it’s right, then I’m there. If I continue to be in academia and rise to the point of applying to be the Vice Chancellor, then why not? it’s fine. I want to live a life of impact. If it can be achieved by being a VC or not, it’s fine.
If you were the current VC of LASU, how would you address the brain drain hampering productivity and innovation in the university?
To the best of my knowledge, there is no brain drain hampering productivity and innovation at LASU. Generally, in the country, we know there is a problem with education. There is brain drain because of many factors, including economic factors. But LASU lecturers are doing their best and are not leaving the country in troops. On the other hand, universities need a lot of support and funds. The private sector needs to help. The private sector and stakeholders should pump their CSR into universities so that they can thrive, especially in terms of innovation.
If you were to address two challenges facing the Nigerian university system, what would they be and how could they be addressed?
I would say staff welfare, but it’s in the hands of the Federal Government and university authorities. If I were to address it, would it be any different from appealing to federal and state governments, and also appealing to stakeholders to ensure that academics are not paupers?
The other challenge is that students are no longer interested in studying. When lecturers are on the ground doing everything for them, they are no longer cooperating. University is not a must for everybody. Parents should allow any child or ward that wants to take up skills to do so. Many of these students are forced to go to school. Many didn’t pass WAEC themselves. So, I would advocate strictness in admitting students into the university. For instance, I would return the written Post UTME examination and would make sure that the process is not corrupted.
Mathematics is considered a difficult subject/course to study and most people do not find it lucrative. Is this true?
It is a thing of the mind and interest. It’s a course that you don’t just breeze through. You sink in it and enjoy it. Mathematics requires a lot of resilience and teaches great life lessons. If you can be patient till you get your results wrong and then rework it to get it right, then it’s going to help you with patience. If people don’t find it lucrative, there might be factors leading to it.
On what could be done to correct the wrong impressions people have about mathematics, the most important thing is that schools should employ competent mathematics teachers. It’s not easy to be a mathematician. I can imagine a secondary school employing a maths teacher, paying him or her N30,000, and still wanting optimal delivery.
Tell us about your non-governmental organisation, The YOA Foundation.
My NGO is a foundation for empowerment — empowerment for skills, rights, and everything that goes around the development of youths and women, especially the girl child. There is always room for expansion. We can’t leave everything to the government alone.
One very popular project of the foundation is the Annual Mathematics Project for junior secondary school females. The impact it’s making is encouraging interest in STEM, especially among girls.
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