Every so often, the academic world produces a story that transcends research papers and lecture halls—a story of profound resilience, divine orchestration, and institutional transformation. Today, we are spotlighting the remarkable trajectory of Prof. Moses Adebowale Akanbi, Professor of Computational Mathematics and the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Lagos State University (LASU).
From his humble beginnings in the small town of Isashi to spearheading the digital revolution at a major university, Prof. Akanbi’s life is a masterclass in turning setbacks into stepping stones.
From Isashi, with a Father’s Vow
Professor Akanbi’s origin story is not one of privilege. Growing up in the Ojo Local Government area, he watched his father, a water treatment operator, be undervalued by less knowledgeable supervisors simply because he lacked formal education. His father’s response was a vow: his children would be educated. This planted a seed of purpose.
Yet, the path was steep. As a child, Moses suffered from a severe, painful eye condition. Denied clear sight, and without access to medical facilities, reading the blackboard was a battle. But it was here, in this limitation, that a gift was unearthed. The cane-wielding discipline of his Primary 4 teacher, Mr. Aina, forced him to memorize multiplication tables. In numbers, the young Moses found a refuge. Mathematics didn’t require perfect vision, only a sharp, logical mind. A love affair with numbers was born, and his classmates prophetically nicknamed him “Professor.”
From “Submit Your Apparatus” to Dean of Science
Prof. Akanbi’s relationship with LASU did not begin in the professorial cadre, nor did it begin as a student. In 1989, navigating the disappointment of falling short of university admission cut-offs due to a language barrier in English, he took a job as a Laboratory Assistant in LASU’s Chemistry Lab.
Known affectionately by the students as “Submit Your Apparatus” due to his daily lab instructions, few could have predicted that this young man would one day become the Dean of the very faculty he served.
“I had no idea God was positioning me. What looked like a consolation prize was actually divine placement.” — Prof. Moses Akanbi
Through a series of divine redirections—including a bold shift from engineering aspirations to embracing his true calling in Mathematics—he gained admission to LASU in 1990. By 1996, he graduated with a Second Class Upper Division in Mathematics, returning to the university in 1998 as a Graduate Assistant. Astonishingly, he was promoted to Assistant Lecturer after just one day in that role.
The Architect of LASU’s Digital Transformation
While pursuing his Ph.D., which he successfully defended in 2005 at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Prof. Akanbi noticed a massive operational flaw in the university system: the manual, error-prone, and painfully slow processing of student results.
Instead of merely complaining, he coded a solution.
Starting with an automated academic profile for his own department in 2000, his innovations quickly caught the attention of university leadership. In 2005, under the visionary leadership of then-Vice Chancellor Prof. Lateef Hussein, Prof. Akanbi was tapped to build and direct the Data Processing Unit (DPU).
Over his 15-year tenure as Director (2005–2020), this unit evolved into the LASU Integrated Data Centre (LIDC). Prof. Akanbi’s software became the digital backbone of the university, transforming how results, transcripts, and student records were managed. Following a 2007 research scholarship in France at LORIA, he brought back cutting-edge European database architectures to further modernize LASU’s systems.
A Legacy of Mentorship and Multiplication
A true scholar’s impact is measured not just by personal accolades, but by the minds they shape. Prof. Akanbi views mentorship as a sacred cycle where “the mentee becomes the multiplier.”
A shining testament to this is his first doctoral graduate, Dr. Ashiribo Senapon Wusu—LASU’s first-ever Ph.D. graduate in Mathematics. Dr. Wusu has since risen to the professorial cadre himself, developing LASUVLAP, a revolutionary Learning Management System.
For Prof. Akanbi, teaching computational mathematics—specifically his research in Runge-Kutta methods for solving ordinary differential equations—is a reflection of life: identifying errors, applying corrective stability, and converging toward a true solution.
The Crowning Moment: The 2025 Inaugural Lecture
On November 11, 2025, Prof. Akanbi stood before a packed Buba Marwa Auditorium at LASU to deliver his Inaugural Lecture, brilliantly titled: “Human Fallibility versus Divine Infallibility in Computational Thought.”
The date was profoundly significant. It marked exactly 25 years since he married his wife, Adebunmi Ebunoluwa Akanbi, whom he met during his NYSC in Lokoja. He credits her unwavering support—from managing the home while he worked late nights running a noisy generator to code his early software, to standing by him when his Ph.D. research files crashed—as the bedrock of his success.
Key Takeaways from a Scholar’s Life
Prof. Moses Akanbi’s journey is a powerful reminder of several core truths:
- Your starting point does not dictate your finish line: A boy with severe childhood eye issues and a language barrier became a leading Professor of Computational Mathematics.
- Solve the problems around you: His willingness to solve his department’s result-processing headache birthed a university-wide digital transformation.
- Grace and hard work go hand-in-hand: Every academic triumph, from his 2011 Postdoctoral Fellowship in South Africa to his eventual Deanship, was the result of relentless preparation meeting divine opportunity.
Prof. Akanbi remains a towering figure in Nigerian academia—an inventor, a leader in digital transformation, and a testament to the fact that with resilience, purpose, and grace, extraordinary legacies can be built from the most ordinary beginning
