While many may remember Kunle Adeyanju, the Nigerian man who recently travelled on a motorcycle from London to Lagos, only a few would remember that the same journey was covered in the past by Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi.

Dorayi is a renowned educationist and adventurer who drove from London to Kano in his Peugeot 504 car, covering about 4,000 miles in 24 days. The feat by the elder statesman was a record-breaker.

His early life

Dorayi was born in Kano on November 16, 1942. His father was an educated and trained medical personnel, who interacted with doctors and nurses of British origin and was influential in setting up the Kano City Hospital.

Dorayi grew up among the elites but interacted with children of other quarters, which gave him a taste of life on the other side. He once revealed that after spending his morning at the Kano City Primary School where he got Western education, he usually spent the rest of the day at a Quranic school he was enrolled by his Muslim parents. He had his secondary school education at the Government Technical College (later named Government College) in Kaduna, where he got to interact with White British teachers, a huge privilege at the time.

The respected professor of Chemistry graduated from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), where he was the president of the Student Union Government from 1966-67. When he was in the USA doing his master’s and PhD in Chemistry, he was the President of the Nigerian Students’ Association.

Dorayi was among the youths who played football for Nigeria when the country celebrated its Independence Day on October 1, 1960. Nigeria’s secondary school children’s team, The Junior Academic School, played the Ghanaian team in front of the great Kwame Nkrumah, Tafawa Balewa, Gamal Abdel Nasser but lost 2-1. He was the first to organize a Trade Fair in Nigeria and was the brain behind the Sharada Industrial Estate in Kano.

Record-breaking adventure

He is called The Adventurous Chemist because of his passion for adventure. While in the UK, his journey was inspired by several adventure books he had read. For instance, he read about the adventures of Marcopolo and also Mungo Park, all of which fascinated him. This must have inspired him to proceed on the record-breaking journey that placed his name in history books.

According to the elder statesman, “England is an Island. So when you reach Southampton you have to take a boat, you and your car, to Calais, France. I drove through Paris and so on through Madrid, Gibraltar. So when you reach Gibraltar, you reach the Mediterranean Sea, where you also take a ferry to Algeria. From there you enter the road all through, though there is no road, in the desert, you’re guided by your compass, your map.”

Speaking further on the trip, Prof disclosed that ”I became very keen during my PhD in the US. I had a Volkswagen which I bought for about 600 dollars at that time. I used it to drive across the desert over there.”

He said after some time, he decided to buy a Peugeot 504 for 1000 pounds to embark on the adventurous journey.

According to him, ”I was assisted by the British Automobile Association (AA). They gave me the guidelines, the map, the route. They told me what to do in crossing the desert, and what not to do. So, I was quite prepared."

Speaking of his preparedness, Doriya said, ”Since I went to secondary technical school, I was technically inclined and I could service my car. I came from a technical background. Going back to Zango in Kano and hanging out with friends, they taught me confidence. So this thing has been in me for years. I enjoyed reading about trans-Sahara."

Doriya also spoke about the strange things he witnessed in the desert during his journey from London to Lagos.

He told Daily Trust, "One thing was that when we arrived at one village, it started to rain, and children of 9, 10, 11 years were crying. They were running home because they didn’t know anything like rain, so they thought the end of the world had come. It hadn’t rained for 14 years. It was the elders who had to counsel them that it was natural.

"Another one was a desert market with camels, which met every six months because it took some months to go home and some months to come back. It happened that when we passed that place, it was the market month. I had never seen 1,000 camels in one place and the way the people were greeting and embracing one other etc. It was very interesting."