Temitope Jaiyeola: Nigeria’s Digital Economy Needs Home-Grown Security Solutions
Temitope Jaiyeola, a Professor of Mathematics at Obafemi Awolowo University, says Nigeria’s digital economy requires home-grown security solutions built on mathematical models.
Jaiyeola made the call on Thursday in Lagos while delivering the 3rd Chair Occupier’s Public Lecture of the Pastor Enoch Adeboye Professorial Chair in Mathematics at the University of Lagos.
The lecture, titled “Algebraic Structures and Their Applications to Cryptography and Complex Systems,” highlighted the need to advance theoretical foundations in quasigroup-based cryptography towards prototype development.
“Nigeria’s digital economy needs home-grown security solutions. The theoretical foundations laid in our work on quasigroup-based cryptography should be advanced towards prototype development.
“Partnerships with industry and cybersecurity agencies should be sought to test and adapt these mathematical models,” he said.
He described Mathematics as the language of science and a disciplined art of reasoning, abstraction and logical creativity.
“At its heart, mathematics seeks to understand relationships, between numbers, shapes, operations, or even ideas.
“From the earliest attempts to count stones and measure land, human curiosity has always pushed toward uncovering the hidden regularities in seemingly diverse phenomena,” he said.
According to him, mathematics provides tools for solving problems and insight into the deep order of reality, noting that the discipline continues to evolve into diverse fields including analysis, topology, geometry, combinatorics and algebra.
Jaiyeola also called for sustained community engagement and targeted support for postgraduate students and early-career lecturers to enhance Nigeria’s visibility in specialised mathematics.
“The outreach model proven successful should be sustained and expanded.
“The Chair can champion an annual UNILAG mathematics outreach to ignite passion for the subject in primary and secondary school students, starting with schools in the UNILAG community,” he said.
He described his tenure as Chair Occupier as an affirmation that abstract inquiry in pure mathematics has practical relevance to cryptography, complex natural systems and societal problem-solving.
“The vision behind this endowed chair is to create a nexus where high-level scholarship meets tangible impact.
“As I have endeavoured to show through our publications, trained students, public lectures, and global collaborations, this vision is not only valid but vibrantly achievable,” he said.
Jaiyeola added that algebraic structures hold vast potential for future applications and expressed confidence that the foundations laid would support continued growth in academia and national development.
