The Director of Ahmadu Bello University’s Centre for Energy Research and Training (CERT), Nigeria, Professor Sunday Jonah, has won African Nuclear Energy Outstanding Performance Award.
The Award, which was conferred on the Nigeria’s leading Nuclear Energy Scientist by African Commission on Nuclear Energy (AFCONE) on July 30th, 2025 at Pretoria, South Africa, during the 16th Anniversary Celebration of ‘Pelindaba Treaty’, was the first of its kind conferred on any African Nuclear Energy Scientist Professor Jonah is the Lead Author of 117 Journal articles and Co-author of 130 others. With the current citation of 1828 h-index of 22 and i-10 index of 64 on Google Scholar, he has been recognised twice – in 2024 and 2025 at the Ahmadu University, Zaria, as one of the most cited authors.
Professor Jonah is responsible for designing and developing a Neutron Reflection Set Up for the determination of Hydrogen content and C+O/H in different materials, a project that was recognised as the best material in a 2010 Science Innovation Fair, and continues to be a vital tool for teaching neutron Physics.
He is a contributor to the Oxford Handbook on Nuclear Security (2025) where his incisive and detailed perspective on the conversion of a Research Reactor from HEU to LEU in Nigeria was published, an achievement that earned him recognition and commendation of the Department of Energy of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Washington DC, in December, 6th, 2018.
For several years and in different capacities, he played front line roles in the effective utilisation of NIRR-1 at the Centre for Energy Research and Training, where, as the Director, from 2021 to date, his leadership provided a new momentum for the centre’s achievements of its mandate of research and education in nuclear Science and Technology.
Professor Jonah is a serial winner of several outstanding awards such as Outstanding Contributions Award by First Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair.
A 2021 Senior Member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Professor Jonah was recognised and awarded Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Physics in 2013.
AFCONE is like what the International Atomic Energy Agency is to the United Nations. It is the nuclear energy watchdog of the African Union commission.
It was formed in 2009 when Africa wanted to have a Weapon Free Zone, at a time when it was only South Africa that had nuclear weapons, and that was why AFCONE was taking to Pelindaba in South Africa, and called “Pelindaba Treaty’, or African Weapons Free Zone.
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