PROF. DAVID JOWITT (1941 – 2023) was born in Britain, grew up in London, and was a graduate of Cambridge University. From 1963 he lived and worked in different parts of Nigeria, teaching in schools and universities. In the late 1960s he was caught up in the Nigerian Civil War, and took up a teaching post in Tripoli in 1971, before returning to Nigeria in 1974.

Prof. Jowitt was a recognized authority on Nigerian English and published widely on the subject, including the textbook Nigerian English (de Gruyter Mouton, 2018). A Professor of English at the University of Jos, he was also a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. 

In 2021, Prof. Jowitt celebrated his 80th birthday and, almost sixty years after first arriving in Nigeria, received news that his application for Nigerian Citizenship had been successful. He was finally awarded Nigerian Citizenship in May 2023, shortly before his death in August 2023.

(David’s obituary in The Guardian here).