Is Aliyu Isa Aliyu the youngest most published Nigerian?

Almost a year ago, I met Dr. Aliyu Isa Aliyu (staff of the Federal University Dutse) at an event in Abuja. There, he introduced himself as a recent Ph.D. graduate in Applied Mathematics from Firat University, Turkey. He noted that he graduated with the best Ph.D. from that University, and if I could remember correctly, […]

Almost a year ago, I met Dr. Aliyu Isa Aliyu (staff of the Federal University Dutse) at an event in Abuja. There, he introduced himself as a recent Ph.D. graduate in Applied Mathematics from Firat University, Turkey. He noted that he graduated with the best Ph.D. from that University, and if I could remember correctly, he also produced the best doctoral thesis in Turkey, that year. Aliyu later proceeded on a postdoctoral fellowship in one of China’s top universities, Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangzhou. In the course of interacting with Aliyu, he mentioned that he had published more than 60 papers during his doctoral training, and all of it indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. I could not believe it until I did an independent verification of his claim. I found that he has indeed published in some of the world’s best journals in Applied Mathematics. Although I have not surveyed the scholarly output of all young Nigerians, but then at the risk of flippancy, I want to believe that he is arguably the most published Nigerian of his age. But I will be glad to be proven wrong on this assertion.

But while Aliyu may have published many high-quality papers in his field, some people might argue that he still needs to publish in higher impact factor journals before he could qualify as a leading player in the discipline. These concerns may be legitimate in fields such as medicine where very high impact factor journals exist to the extent that the New England Journal of Medicine currently has an impact factor of 70. However, in fields such as Applied Mathematics where Aliyu’s research interests lie, the impact factor of journals is low relative to other fields. For example, Communication in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation is a top 3 per cent journal in Applied Mathematics but it has an impact factor of 3.181. Other journals are Control Engineering Practice and Pervasive and Mobile Computing with impact factors of 2.616 and 2.974 respectively, which are both top 5 per cent journals in the discipline. Therefore, since there are ‘low’ impact factor journals in Applied Mathematics (representing the best in that discipline), it is only logical to see reasons why Aliyu could not have published in journals with impact factors that are above those in his field. Another point to note is that Aliyu is not the lead author of all the papers he published, but that does not mean he did not design the research and/or write the papers himself. In countries such as Turkey where he studied for a Ph.D., supervisors have the liberty to take the first authorship of papers if they want even though a paper may be designed and written by the student. Nonetheless, out of the 65 papers credited to him, he was the lead author of 13 papers. Based on data from Scopus, he currently has 950 citations with h-index of 20.

After studying Aliyu’s scholarly output, I was curious to find out why he was considered for a postdoctoral position in China instead of a professorship. Although I am aware that there are scholarly, administrative and community service components that must be satisfied before a person is promoted or appointed to the rank of a professor, nevertheless, I also understand that some of the components can be waived in exceptional circumstances as Aliyu’s. I then sent a message to Aliyu questioning the rationality of his being a postdoctoral fellow given that if the fellowship provides opportunity for improving on research and training as further preparation for a career in the academia and research, then he could as well achieve that even as a full time professor; as being a professor does not stop one from additional learning, improving on their research skills and teaching experience, collaborating with other researchers around the world, improving their publication impacts, etc. These are all that professors can do. It was then that Aliyu informed me that after arrival in China, authorities in Sun Yat-sen University further evaluated his publication record and offered him a position as an associate research professor. The University had wanted to appoint him a full professor but the only hindrance to the offer was that he never secured a research grant in the course of his academic career.

Dr. Aliyu Isa Aliyu was born in Kano in 1984. He attended Badar Nursery and Primary School, and later transferred to Victory Schools, all in Kano, where he completed his primary education. He completed his secondary education at De-Larfel Secondary School, Kano, in 2003. In 2004, he joined the Remedial Science program at Bayero University. Upon successful completion of the program, he was admitted to study for a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, even though that was not his preferred choice. His ambition then was to become a medical doctor because he had a perception that a mathematics graduate would only end up as a teacher and he did not want to be a teacher. But with encouragements from his parents and close friends, he developed an interest in mathematics and graduated with a degree in the subject with a CGPA of 4.22, in 2009. In 2012, Aliyu was sponsored by the Kano State government under the Kwankwaso administration for a master’s degree at the Jordan University of Science and Technology. During the program, he secured employment as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Mathematics, Federal University Dutse. In 2015, Aliyu embarked on a self-sponsored Ph.D. program at Firat University, Turkey. He completed his Ph.D. in record time with outstanding achievements. Aliyu’s scholarly feats are outstanding anywhere in the world, but more outstanding in Nigeria where very many professors cannot even match his research output.