Professor Akin Mabogunje (1931–2022)

Abstract

Professor Akin Mabogunje, often referred to as the Father of African Geography, passed away in August 2022 at the age of 90 years. Professor Mabogunje was the recipient of the RSGS’s Centenary Medal (now the Coppock Medal). in 1984, the first and, to date, only African to receive it. He was also the first African President of the International Geographical Union and served in this position from 1980 to 1984, as well as being the first African to be elected as Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1999. ProfessorMabogunje was one of themost distinguishedAfrican scholars of his generation, his work focusing onurban geography and regional planning, and hewas central to the development of Geography as a university subject not only in Nigeria but across the continent of Africa. Such was his intellect and talent that he was the first Nigerian to be made a professor when he was appointed to theChair ofGeography at theUniversity of Ibadan in1965at the ageof only 34years. Professor Mabogunje published many papers and books during his long career, with perhaps the most notable being the single-authored monograph Urbanization in Nigeria, published in 1968, and then another such monograph The Development Process: a Spatial Perspective, published in 1980. In his work, Mabogunje challenged the relevance of western explanations of urban development in relation to the urbanisation process in Africa. He argued that the growth and development of African urban areas were subject to three limiting conditions, as he called them, these being: the importance of surplus food production for consumption by the urban population; the existence of a small group of powerful people who provided the political leadership and stability to allow urban growth to take place; and an active class of traders and merchants to drive the economic growth of African urban areas. For Mabogunje, simply and uncritically transferring theories of urban growth developed in North America and Europe provided little meaningful explanation of urbanisation in an African setting. He was arguably the first geographer to ‘Africanise’ thinking and to break out of the colonial mindset and mode of thought. It is fitting that Professor Mabogunje should be remembered as one of the greats of African Geography, but also in the eyes of many, myself included, one of the greats of world Geography.