El Rufai’s Education Commissioner, Nok is dead

Andrew Nok, the Kaduna State commissioner of education who facilitated the much publicised Teacher’s IQ Test, is dead. He was 55.

Nok had been down with an undisclosed ailment, and was on admission at an Abuja hospital. He was discharged last week, but passed on in the early hours of today, Tuesday, November 21st.

Government officials, friends and well wishers are at his home for condolences with his family.

Mr. Nok, a professor of Biochemistry, has won many national and international awards.

In 2010, he won Nigeria’s highest academic honour, the Nigerian National Order of Merit, NNOM, in the science category.

His work on the discovery of the gene responsible for sleeping sickness won the NLNG Science Prize in 2009.

He was the 2013 winner of the Alexander von Humboldt prize for science.

The 1983 Biochemistry graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, was born at Nok village in Jaba local government of Kaduna state on January 11, 1962.

He taught at his alma mater until his appointment as commissioner in July, 2015.