Business a.m. Reporter
Prestigious Downing College, Cambridge University, recently honoured distinguished United States based Nigerian-American kidney expert, Azubueze ‘Beze’ Afam Adogu, by selecting him as Alumnus of the Year for the academic year 2024/2025. He was also elected as a Fellow Commoner by the Governing Body of the College for one year from October 1, 2025. The election was held in July, and Adogu’s investiture took place during a ceremony held at the college in September.
In explaining the award given to Adogu, Downing College said the Alumnus of the Year 2025 award “recognises the outstanding achievements of our alumni community and the variety of ways in which you are making an impact in your professional and personal lives.”
A citation on Adogu by Downing College identified some of these outstanding achievements for which he received the honour to include the fact that “Adogu has been at the forefront of rural healthcare in Georgia USA, building and maintaining haemodialysis units across the breath of central Georgia, which has brought specialised renal care to the doorsteps of many rural, minority and disenfranchised populations in the state. He has also developed an organic farm designed to instil healthy eating habits.”
When he received the award in September, Beze Adogu Upon receiving his award, Beze said: “It is an honour to be back at Downing to collect this award. Being here has reminded me of the things I valued about my time at College. The Downing spirit of endeavour, inspiration and openness. All of these made it possible for me, a man from Nigeria to come and study here. Downing and Cambridge are viewed across the world as the academic best, so I’ll treasure this award forever.”
Interestingly, Adogu, who entered Cambridge to study Biochemistry 38 years ago, was returning to Downing College for the first time after 34 years for the investiture. In those 34 years, Adogu who told the gathering at the investiture that he had been like a ‘prodigal son’ having been “without any contact or lending any support to my university and college,” had established himself in his area of specialisation in medicine; first, by paying attention to what he called “the more urgent quandaries facing my country of birth, Nigeria,” and then in the United States where he has since fully established himself as a renowned expert of kidney diseases and transplantation.
His expertise and dedication to the medical profession have not only seen him devoted to clinical practice but also teaching. For instance, Adogu is a clinical professor of medicine at the Medical College of Georgia. He is also a clinical professor of internal medicine at the MCG-UGA Medical Partnership in Athens Georgia, where he is involved in the training of medical students and postgraduate resident physicians.
At the presentation of the award in September, Beze Adogu took the floor to make the following remarks:
“I am beyond honoured to have been chosen by you as Alumnus of the Year. I thank you all for this singular recognition, from the school and people that I hold in the very highest esteem.
“Thirty-eight years ago, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I made landfall at Cambridge, or perhaps more accurately, Cambridge made landfall on me, inexorably sweeping me into her vortex. After the dust settled, it would prove to be an enduring love affair. In my three years of residence, and an extra one year of research fellowship at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, I came to appreciate the norms- and rules- of an academic community, founded on endless curiosity, a culture of excellence, an inexhaustible capacity for hardwork, and a wellspring of integrity. Those were very important lessons that have guided me to this day.
“I have been like a prodigal son, without any contact or lending any support to my university and college, having been distracted by the more urgent quandaries facing my country of birth, Nigeria. As some of you might know, Nigeria has faced an endless series of unending crises, often attributed to a decrepit corrupt political leadership, whilst the truth is that almost everyone is complicit, in one way or another, for the crisis of conscience that afflicts that unfortunate behemoth. Education is in shambles, religion has been corrupted by the advent of a sick- and sickening- Prosperity Gospel, where God is remade in the image of Shylock bestowing untold wealth to His worshipers, and Man has finally become a wolf to his fellow man. Nothing, but nothing, is sacrosanct in Nigeria anymore.
“It is inconceivable to me that any one person in any sizeable collection of his peers could rightly deserve to be named “first” in anything, moreso within a galaxy of extraordinarily distinguished alumni such as in Downing College, first among equals. I am reminded of one of the first lines I picked up from the Cambridge theater, I believe it was through my classmate and lifelong friend, Alastair Gittner, as derived from Addison’s Cato, “it is not for mere mortals to command success, but we shall do more than that, my dear Sempronius, we shall deserve it”. It is my earnest prayer that at the end of this journey which we call life, perhaps, one way or another, I would be found to be overall more deserving of this singular honor.
“All these confounding events have actually made Cambridge even more important, not less so, in an uncertain world. Cambridge has remained an oasis of sanity in a world that appears to have lost its mojo. In a world given to disinformation and cant, where public outrage visits us as regularly- and predictably- as the sacrament of Communion, distinct spaces for renewal, such as Cambridge, clearly remain absolute requirements. This University started life as a monastery, dedicated to understanding the nexus between faith and science, and would transmogrify in this troubled age as once more a monastery, dedicated to finding a balance between the mind and the heart, body and soul, faith and reason, and more prosaically, Heaven and Earth.
“With the highest per capita concentration of Nobel Laureates anywhere in the world, this old school which gave the world the genius of Isaac Newton, the insight of Charles Darwin, the perspicacity of Alan Turing, the mathematical nous of Charles Babbage, the cognitive abilities of Stephen Hawking, the artistry of Francis Bacon, and the poetry of Sylvia Plath, is destined to lead the children of Man to a better age and destination.
“I pledge to do all that is in my power to be part of that momentous journey.
Once again, I thank you for this acknowledgment, as I also thank my teachers, who thought I was far better than I truly was. I particularly remember my primary school teacher, Ms Christie Anumba nee Okeke at All Saints’ Primary School, to Mr Sam Ogoazi, my middle school principal and lifelong mentor who unwittingly encouraged my sainted father in the conceit that it was inevitable- or appropriate- that all his 5 children could take to the law, Mr Sam Echezona, who contrived to teach introductory science precisely to my level of understanding at Form One, Mr R Ekwuagana, who tried- and failed- to make me adopt History as my life’s calling, Dr Brian Cowlishaw, an Australian immigre who would nurture my instincts for Biochemistry, Professor Winifred V Weber, who made the esoterica of physiology come alive for me, Dr Amobi Ogbukagu, Dr Nwachukwu Azikiwe, a stand-out intellectual and scion of Nigeria’s “Zik of Africa”, who devoted time and attention in training me as one would a United States medicine resident whilst I was still only a medical student at Jos, Professor Alfred Ikeme who probably needs no introduction in heaven or on earth, Professor Ed Yeboah, my chief of surgery who tried his best to convince me (against all available evidence, not least the fact that being sinistral, I had to learn each surgical procedure twice: first with my right hand in order to make it easier on preceptors, then with my left hand for speed and dexterity) that I was more temperamentally suited for Surgery than Internal Medicine, the debonair Professor Enyioma Obineche at ABU who made the study of kidney diseases irresistible, doyen of cardiology and all-round avatar, Professor Chim Abengowe who offered me an automatic slot to complete my residency training under his aegis at ABU Kaduna after examining me during my final year exit exam in Medicine at Jos, my revered Dean of Medicine and staunchest advocate ever, Professor Uche Peter Isichei, who opened all doors- both within and outside Nigeria- and here at Cambridge, my supervisor, the incomparable Professor Nick Hales, the always brilliant Professor John Hutton, and towards the end of my stewardship, Professor Benjamin Osuntokun, who arrived on sabbatical from Ibadan, to join the Regius professorial unit. Here, in America, I have benefited greatly- and thrived- from standing on the shoulders of Professors Ralph Caruana and Laura Mulloy at the Medical College of Georgia, and Professor Cecil Coggins of Internal Medicine and Professor Benedict Cosimi at the Massachusetts General Hospital Transplant Unit at Harvard.
“Nothing would have been possible without the support of my dear wife, Martine, my three children who are not totally sure what to make of all this, my siblings- especially my younger sister, Chinelo, a Lucy Cavendish Cambridge law alumna, who single-handedly convinced me to accept Cambridge instead of Oxford, where I had also been contemporaneously admitted, and my dearly beloved parents, Sylvanus and Ada, both distinguished lawyers in their day, who dreamt of this day, but did not live to see it all come to fruition. It is to their memory that I dedicate this award.
“Now, let’s go forth, and change this world.”
