Professor Salami was born 24 May, 1941 at Ijebu Imusin, Ogun State. After his primary school, he completed his secondary school education at St. Paul’s College, Zaria in 1951. He then moved to Lagos where he worked briefly at Barclays Bank, DCO, Obun Eko, and then at ECN, which eventually became PHCN before it was privatised.
He left Nigeria for the UK in 1962 and attended Newport and Monmouthshire College of Technology in 1962; University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST); and the University of Cardiff where he obtained his PhD in 1971. During his sandwich programme at UWIST, he trained at Guest Keen Iron and Steel and under English Electric Rugby, installing and commissioning Paper Points in Sizeeell Nuclear Power Station Suffolk, East Anglia.
After working for about three years at the University of Southampton as a Research Fellow, he returned to Nigeria in 1973 and started teaching at the University of Benin – the university being the only one in the country then running a sandwich programme similar to his training. He worked there for about 33 years before his retirement in 2006.
He became a professor in Mechanical Engineering in 1987. Since his retirement he has been working as a contract professor at the Niger Delta University, NDU, Beye.
