DAVID JOWITT was born in Britain in 1941, grew up in London, and is a graduate of Cambridge University. Since 1963 he has 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 is a recognized authority on Nigerian English and has published widely on the subject, including the textbook Nigerian English (de Gruyter Mouton, 2018). A Professor of English at the University of Jos, he is 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 and that he had been added to the list recommended for the award to the Head of State.