15 Quick facts about Late Omololu Olunloyo

By Isa Isawade

Former governor of Oyo State, Dr. Victor Omololu Olunloyo, died on Sunday 6 April 2025, a few days to his 90th birthday. He was born on 14 April 1935.

A statement by the family earlier on Sunday announced the demise of the elder statesman.

Olunloyo, a renowned mathematician, engineer and technocrat was a prominent figure in the politics of the Second and Third Republics.

Some other quick facts about him, as aggregated by Wikipedia, are as follows:

1. He was born Victor Omololu Sowemimo Olunloyo in Ibadan, the Oyo State Capital, Southwest of Nigeria.

2. His father, Horatio Olunloyo was a Christian and his late mother Alhaja Bintu Tejumola Abebi Olunloyo who died October 2013 at 102-year-old was a Muslim.

3. His father died in December 1948 when Victor Olunloyo was 13 years old.

4. He was a highly respected academic, administrator and politician.

5. He earned Ph.D in 1961 from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

6. His thesis focused on the “Numerical Determination of the Solutions of Eigenvalue Problems of the Sturm–Liouville Type”.

7. He published several papers in applied mathematics and number theory.

8. Olunloyo was appointed Commissioner for Economic Development for the Western Region in 1962 at the age of 27, in the cabinet of Dr. Moses Majekodunmi.

9. He was re-appointed when Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo was appointed military governor of Western State.

10. Other positions included Commissioner for Community Development, Education (twice), Special Duties, Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs which includes crowning of two of Nigeria’s monarchs namely the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III and the Soun of Ogbomosho, Oba Oyewunmi.

11. He was appointed chairman of the Western Nigerian Development Corporation.

12. In 1983, he ran for governorship of Oyo State on the platform of National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and won.

13. He served as the governor of Oyo State from 1 October 1983 to 31 December 1983, when the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari took over power in Nigeria.

14. He later became a power in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State.

15. He was elected chairman of the PDP Planning and Strategy Committee for Ibadanland to prepare for the 2011 election, and was also made chairman of the PDP Media and Publicity Committee for the state.