The Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), the apex body of scholars in the Humanities disciplines, has conferred its Fellowship on Professor Ayodeji Olukoju, Vice-Chancellor, Caleb University, Imota, Lagos State. In a statement by the Secretary of NAL, Professor ‘Kunle Adeniran, FNAL, the Academy announced that its College of Fellows had ratified the election of Olukoju and three others (Professors A.E. Eruvbetine, Biola Odejide and Rotimi Badejo), who would be formally inducted at the NAL Convocation at the University of Lagos on Thursday, August 11, 2011.

Professor Olukoju is a First Class Honours graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He obtained the MA and PhD degrees in History from the University of Ibadan. Appointed Professor of History on October 1, 1998, Olukoju has 26 years University teaching experience at the Ogun State University (1984-87) and the University of Lagos, Akoka-Yaba (1987 till date). He was Head, Department of History (2001-2004) and two-term elected Dean of Arts (2005-2009), at the University of Lagos before assuming duty as Vice-Chancellor, Caleb University on October 18, 2010. He has been External Examiner and Professorial Assessor at many Nigerian and Ghanaian Universities. Professor Olukoju is Convener of the Network of Nigerian Historians and member of the Governing Council of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.

Professor Olukoju has over one hundred scholarly publications and has maintained an unbroken stream of international publishing, including authored books, chapters in books and articles in specialist and Africanist journals, every year since 1991. He has held the Japan Foundation, British Academy, IDE (Japan), DAAD (Germany), Leventis (UK) and Chapman (UK) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships, and a WARA Residency at Emory University, Atlanta, USA. The first African to be elected into the Executive Committee of the International Maritime Economic History Association (IMEHA), Olukoju was on the editorial boards of African Economic History (Madison, USA), Afrika Zamani: Journal of the Association of African Historians (Dakar, Senegal), and now serves on the boards of History in Africa: A Journal of Method (Madison, USA) and Journal of African History (Cambridge, UK). He has consulted for UNESCO, The Ford Foundation, WOTRO: The Netherlands Foundation for Tropical Research, the Israeli Science Foundation, SEPHIS, CODESRIA, Routledge Press, the Fordham University Press, Thomson Gale Publishers, National Universities Commission, Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Guaranty Trust Bank and the Nigerian Labour Congress.

Professor Olukoju is married to Omowumi, a lawyer, and is blessed with four children.