Imafidon’s cue, the genius in you

His rich and resounding voice tore neatly into the velvet air of the jam-packed Auditorium. A tub-thumping orator with the skills of a talented raconteur, he wowed his audience for more than two hours dishing out uncommon sense with a compelling authority. It was as if the jaw-dropping “conversation” should never end and like Oliver Twist, we asked for more!

The appreciative audience was enraptured; some shed tears of ecstasy as the lecturer left no one in doubt about the true definition of a genius for there was one (himself) right at the podium. Meet the University of Ilorin 33rd convocation lecturer, Prof. Chris Imafidon, an intellectual colossus and acclaimed patriarch of the Imafidons, “the brainiest or smartest family in Britain,” perhaps in Europe and the world at large, with demonstrable evidence!

Prof. Imafidon’s first daughter, Anne-Marrie, passed the UK-level computing exams when she was 13 and she later became the youngest graduate to ever obtain a Master’s degree from Oxford University at 19. The second daughter, Christiana, is the youngest student in history to be admitted to a British university at the age of 11. Then, his third daughter, Samantha, passed two high school-level Mathematics and Statistics exams at age six and became the youngest girl in the UK to attend secondary school at age nine. His twins, Peter and Paula, dubbed “wonder twins”, are the youngest in history to ever pass the University of Cambridge’s Advanced Mathematics exams.

It is to its eternal credit that it is this magnetic and enigmatic personality that the University of Ilorin invited to deliver its 33rd convocation lecture, “The Genius in YOU: New Tools, Techniques and Technology for Developing Individual and Institutional Greatness.” This was the first lecture to be delivered on the African soil in the last 30 years by the world renowned scholar par excellence and mentor extraordinaire. Even the late Nelson Mandela wanted South Africa to receive the genius first but it is Nigeria’s University of Ilorin that first brought him home. Great!