Dr. Samuel Adeniyi-Jones

On the 11th of March 1945, a son, Samuel Olukayode was born to Samuel Nathaniel and Rosetta Nnenma Adeniyi-Jones of 76 Jubilee Road Aba. Samuel and his brother Dr CC Adeniyi-Jones were of Nigerian/Sierra Leonian extraction while Rosetta was a daughter of the Epelle ‘war canoe house' of Opobo.

From 1950 to 1957, Kayode and his siblings grew up in the idyllic pre-independence milieu that was Aba. He attended the Government school Aba, where the early signs of his prodigious intellect became evident, so much so that in the fifth year of his six-year primary school course, he gained admission into Kings College Lagos on a Federal Government scholarship. He moved to Lagos at 12 years of age and seamlessly slipped into his role as the much-loved cousin/nephew of auntie Remi and the rest of his Lagos family. At Kings College, he enjoyed sports, excelled in academics and made lifelong friendships.

His school leaving results earned him another Federal Government scholarship, this time to study medicine. So, in 1964 he enrolled in the Leningrad Pediatric Medical School in St Petersburg, Russia. He learned a new language, endured the fabled Russian winters and graduated as a doctor in 1970.

Having completed his medical studies, he took a break and did a short locum assignment at a hospital in England. On his way back to Russia, a fortuitous meeting with some American academics in Stockholm resulted in a change in his plans. He decided to pursue post graduate studies in the United States. And what a journey it turned out to be. He was a fellow at Harvard Medical School from 1975 to 1978. During this time, he obtained a Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he met a cousin from his Sierra Leonian side, the brilliant Dr Maduka Steady. He was a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics and Biochemistry and an attending physician at Harvard’s Children's Hospital from 1978 to 1981. In 1981, responding to his restless quest for new challenges, Samuel joined the National Institutes of Health where he immersed himself in cutting edge research including foundational enquiry into Alu RNA Sequencing. During this period, he was at various times a consultant to the World Bank, UNDP and the WHO on nutrition, health research in Africa and the major health challenge of the era, HIV/AIDS. In 2005, Dr Adeniyi-Jones joined the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Global Affairs (HHS/OGA), where he had an outstanding career serving as the Director of the Africa Region Office at the Office of Global Affairs. The retirement statement issued in 2022 by the office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is worth seeing verbatim.

‘Dr Adeniyi-Jones’ contributions to science, global and domestic health and health diplomacy are immeasurable; some of his notable contributions to the mission of HHS include: >Regional and bilateral collaborations to support disease outbreak responses-including the largest Ebola outbreak in history, the 2014 response to Ebola in West Africa, that included a timely and insistent Ebola warning call to the hospital CEO in Lagos which protected Nigeria and the world from a potential catastrophe long before others recognised the present danger. His contributions to the response in Nigeria was characterised in the movie 93 Days.

>Elevating HIV, Malaria and other key global health issues to the attention on high level policy actors in the regions, including African Heads of State and Government at African Union Summits which gave us valuable information and important access to advance US interests and forge African partnerships.

>Advocating on behalf of HHS equities in the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the President’s Malaria Initiative among other USG health programs and initiatives.

>Instrumental contributions to the development of key African-led public health institutions including the African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative, African Society of Laboratory Medicine and the Africa Centers for Disease Control-the impact of which is being realized in the region today and will continue to be felt for decades to come.’

The reference to the Ebola call in the statement above has a layer to it that may not be immediately apparent. The hospital CEO in Lagos and the director at OGA in Washington DC. were not strangers to each other. They had played cricket against each other as secondary school boys in Lagos. This was Benji calling upon SKAJ at the edge of the abyss. This time they were both on the same team and their relationship cut through all the red tape. So thankfully, the horrors that might have befallen Nigeria and beyond are only in our imagination.

The words of some of the people who he encountered during his career give an insight into the spirit that underpinned his achievements. Dr Neal LeLeiko said “After a great deal of agonizing, this is what I can say, Samuel Adeniyi-Jones was my friend, a very special person. We met in 1979 while we were both studying at MIT. Everyone talked about the importance of trying to help people. Samuel maximized his energy and every ounce of his being to help others.”

In his recollections, Dr Jotham Musinguzi, the Director General of the Uganda National Population Council said “At the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Dr Adeniyi-Jones helped Uganda to establish a state of-the-art national Blood Bank to ensure a supply of safe blood. Later he helped other African countries make sure that they also had safe Blood Banks. Through his constant and strong advocacy, he helped establish the African CDC. In all his work and interactions, he was both bold and professional.”

Michael Zasloff, with whom Sam worked at NIH in the early 1980’s said, “Anyone other than Sam might have joined a division of a medical school and settled into a comfortable tenured faculty position. But Sam was exceptional, he had an insatiable curiosity and was drawn to biological problems that he knew could be solved with intelligence and careful experimentation. Sam was a very special man. He was brilliant, creative, imaginative and rebellious with respect to established dogma. He was kind and empathetic with the most wonderful sense of humor, I still remember the twinkle in his eye … “

Kayode’s ‘absent minded professor’ affect belied his single-minded commitment to help others. He was also generously endowed with empathy. This perhaps motivated his engagement with African countries in the early 1980’s in the face of the ravages of the HIV crisis. Having worked on the front lines against the disease in Uganda, Kayode came to Nigeria with the urgent mission to encourage the leaders to prepare a bulwark against the impending onslaught of the virus. His was a lone voice and his initial visits to the corridors of power in Abuja failed to get traction. As it was taking time to get results on the national level, he came down to Lagos and armed with boxes of condoms, would cruise the streets after dark giving condoms to sex workers. If he could not initiate a national program yet, he would save one life at a time.

Over the years he acquired a retinue of associates and friends. To them he was either Kayode, Samuel, Sam, Dr Jones, Dr Sam, Brother Kayode, Sammy Sparkle, Dr A. Jones, Dr Adeniyi-Jones or SKAJ. And, depending on how they addressed him he knew where they fitted into his concentric circles of knowing. Though he had many friends, Kayode was really a loner, he was consumed by his work and regular meditation sessions.

In 2004, a chance meeting in Addis Ababa with the delightful Liyat Joba, blossomed into a friendship that was forged in the crucible of their joint commitment to support children and their parents living on the rough side of Addis streets. From co-conspirator in their project to support the education for his little friends, she became his constant companion. On August 6th 2007, they became husband and wife. This transformed Sam into a family man and their marriage was blessed with two sons, first Samuel Hasset and later Noah Amanuel.

He revelled in the joys of family life; holidays with Liyat and the boys, gatherings at home with friends and family, and the daily pleasure of watching his children grow. He was so proud of his family and was at his happiest in those autumn years. He was plagued though by a chronic back problem that started a few years before his retirement in 2022. After a life of active international work, retirement posed something of a challenge for his active mind, especially as he had always defined himself by his ability to help others. He began to think about the possibility of reprising his life in scientific research, but his declining health curtailed the realization of that.

On the morning of Tuesday the 22nd of October, after a brave struggle, Samuel Olukayode Adeniyi-Jones, a husband, father, brother and friend slipped away, freed from the limits of this world to which he had committed his talents so diligently. It is futile to try and estimate the number of lives that were impacted positively because he lived. Suffice it to say, in the words of his old friend and colleague Neal LeLeiko, “The world will miss him, his family will miss him, I will miss him.”

A funeral service for Samuel will be held Monday, November 11, 2024 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home, 11800 New Hampshire Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20904. Following the funeral service will be a graveside service at 2:00 PM at George Washington/Mt Lebanon Cemeteries, 9500 Riggs Rd, Adelphi, MD 20783.