The Governing Board, Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA), an agency of the Presidency, on Friday unveiled the winners of the 2020/2021 Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) as approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Professor Shekarau Yakubu Aku, the Chairman, Governing Board, NNMA, who announced this at a press conference in Abuja, said the Board got approval from President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, to honour three Nigerians with the award of Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM).
Saturday Independent reports that the NNOM is an academic award conferred on distinguished academicians and intellectuals who have made outstanding contributions to the academic, growth and development of Nigeria.
The awardees include Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, NNOM in Medicine (2020), Professor Godwin Samuel Ekhaguere, NNOM in Science (2021), and Professor Charles Ejike Chidume, who is to be honoured post-humously with NNOM in Science (2020), having passed before the award.
Prof. Aku, the Board Chairman, explained that Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye is an outstanding world-renowned surgeon and scientist who is widely celebrated for having performed in-utero surgery on fetuses with large tumors while still in their mother’s womb.
His recognition as the first African and indeed the first Nigerian to perform this feat has reverberated all the world and brought immense prominence to Nigeria.
According to Aku, Professor Charles Ejike Chidume, who won NNOM in Science was a professor of Mathematics at African University of Science and technology, Abuja.
Chidume’s works encompasses several fields, including Nonliner Functional of Fixed Point. Analysis, Nonlinear Operator theory and differential Equations, Nonlinear Optimization in particular, his research focuses on the area of Fixed Point. Furthermore, he introduced a new and powerful iterative algorithm, which is the only one in the literature that does not involve the resolvent, for approximating a zero of maximal monotone map.
Also, Professor Godwin O, Samuel Ekhaguere, NNOM in Science (2021) is a Mathematician, with research interest and activities Principally in Mathematical Physics, Noncommutative Stochastic Analysis, Topologicay Partial -Algebras and Financial Mathematics.
Ekhaguere’s research activities jp Mathematics Physics, a discipline that straddles mathematics and physics
involve innovatively creating new directions in Mathematics and deploying the outcomes to solve outstanding problems in branch of Mathematica! Physics called Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory.
The Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) was established by ACT No. 53 of the 1979 and was amended by Act No. 96 of the 1992 now LFN 122 of 2004. The Award is named Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) and is a separate Order of Dignity in the Highest Honors category in the fields of Science, Medicine, Engineering/Technology, and Humanities including Arts ‘and Culture.
Nigerian scholars have tended to carry out their researches in their order of personal interest irrespective of whether they are relevant to the needs and aspirations of the nation, except perhaps in the areas of politics.
The NNMA as an Agency is charged with selecting all intellectual and creative contributions in all areas of human endeavor, and rewarding unique contributions by the award of the NNOM.
