Ayo Akinfe, born in Salford, Manchester, is a London-based journalist who has worked as a magazine and newspaper editor for the last 20 years. Ayo attended Federal Government College Kaduna and obtained his first degree in history from the University of Ibadan. He returned to the UK in 1990 and did his post-graduate studies in journalism at the University of Westminster in London.
Ayo spent his key formative years in Nigeria where he saw the kind of horrors poverty, an unfair trading environment, under-development, corruption and mismanagement visits on African countries. While at the University of Ibadan, Ayo was an official of the National Association of Nigerian Students (Nans)
After working in journalism for 19 years, Ayo decided to switch to book writing after realising that there is simply too little out there on African history. Fuelling the Delta Fires is one of a series of novels aimed at highlighting Africa’s sorry plight and the misleading image peddled about her.
Ayo is also an avid football fan who writes regularly for Nigerian publications such as The Guardian, Vanguard and The Nation. Apart from politics and socio-economic matters, his other great passion is the Super Eagles. He has a Nigerian Village Square column where most of his articles are actually about the Super Eagles.
A big Wilbur Smith fan, Ayo plans to make his series about West Africa similar to what Wilbur has done in southern Africa. Ayo has read all of Wilbur’s 33 novels and believes what has been done there can be replicated in the West African sub-region
