Augustine Njoku Obi was from Owerri, Imo State. He was a Nigerian Professor of virology. In 1971, he was known for developing an anti-cholera vaccine approved by WHO as efficacy by WHO. He was elected President of the Nigerian Academy of Science in 1985 to succeeded Professor Emmanuel Emovon. Augustine Njoku was known to be an educator, microbiologist and researcher.
Njoku-Obi earned his first degree before the war from the University College, Ibadan (now University of Ibadan). Although he happened to have developed this vaccine when he was a professor in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
On the Nsukka campus, those buildings, one of which housed the laboratory that Njoku-Obi and his team laboured in to develop their world standard anti-cholera vaccine are still there. The anti-cholera vaccine saved a lot of people from the outbreak (EC Ejiogu reported). This vaccine was also used to end the 1972 Kano Cholera Outbreak.
It has been reported that the likes of Njoku-Obi and his team are visibly missing and absent in our country, Nigeria.
Augustine Njoku who was born in 1930 died in 2003.
