Iya Abubakar

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Professor Iya Abubakar (born 14 December 1934) is a Nigerian mathematician and politician.

Abubakar was educated at University College Ibadan (a college of the University of London, later to become the University of Ibadan) and earned a Ph.D at the University of Cambridge.

He worked as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan in 1965-66, before being appointed as Professor of Mathematics at Ahmadu Bello University at the age of 28, in 1967. He held this position until 1975, as well as a visiting professorship at the City University of New York from 1971-72. In 1975, he was appointed the Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, a position he held until 1978.

After the regime of Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ handed power back to an elected government in 1979, Abubakar was appointed the Federal Minister of Defence and served as such until 1982. He was elected to the Senate of Nigeria in 1999 and re-elected in 2003, representing northern Adamawa for the People's Democratic Party. Abubakar has also chaired the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriation and the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.

Abubaka was a director of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 1972 to 1975. In the late 1990s, he served as director of the National Mathematical Centre at Abuja and chaired both the National Manpower Commission of Nigeria and the non-governmental Africa International Foundation for Science and Technology. From 1993 to 2005, he was the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the University of Ibadan.

His Erdős number is 5.