The world congregated in Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), last week for the 29th Annual Conference of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) an event which saw an array of academics, University Administrators, the royalty and other crème-de-la-crème of the society. The Conference was flagged off with a courtesy call on Ekiti State Governor, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi, at the Government House in Ado-Ekiti.
During the courtesy call, the Founder and President of of Afe Babalola University, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, has said that Ekiti State, with the collaboration of the state government and well-meaning Ekiti indigenes will do everything humanly possible to ensure that the state continues to remain in the forefront of the provision of quality, functional and re reformatory education.
Babalola who lamented that education is no longer what it used to be in the 60’s, pledged that he is determined to make Ekiti State the best in terms of provision of quality education in the country, thus justifying the state’s pay-off (motto) of the Fountain of Knowledge.
Because education is a potent and veritable weapon to fight ignorance, poverty and disease, the international legal icon said the just concluded Conference of Vice Chancellors would address the all-important issue and it was indeed address.
Fayemi thanked the Vice Chancellors for choosing to hold their 29th Annual Conference in Ekiti State, a state “where education to us is not just a passion, but a bounden duty. Education is our way of life. What our father, Aaare Afe Babalola, has done is education to another by his university which I always refer to as our own Harvard in this part of the world”.
He added:” Baba has contributed a lot to our society and we will forever be grateful to him. We thank you Baba. But for you and your university, we may not have this array of academic stars, including my own lecturer to be here this morning”.
Starting from the Ewi of Ado, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Aladesanmi III, who urged the Chief Executive Officers of Nigerian Universities and indeed, Nigerian Academics, to take their rightful place in the scheme of things to ensure industrial development of the country, to the Executive of the NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan, who advocated autonomy for Nigerian Universities, to Babalola who x-rayed the problems afflicting the country’s educational landscape and returned a verdict that the panacea to get out of the imbroglio is true and functional university autonomy, all of them spoke in one word that there is still a lot to be done to ensure sustainable education in the country.
Jonathan specifically want Nigerian Universities to include Entrepreneurial Training in their curricular to be able to produce all-round graduates who will be job creators and not mere graduates who will be clutching their certificates, looking for white collar jobs that are in short supply.
Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, asked many more Nigerians to take a cue from Babalola who left the pinnacle of his otherwise flourishing legal career to invest his all in an equally flourishing citadel of learning to ensure functional, quality and reformatory education for the present and future generations of Nigerians.
Former Executive Secretary of the NUC and now Chairman of Council of Crawford University, Prof. Peter Okebukola, held the Conference spell-bound with his paper titled: “
After what he called distillation of facts, he came out with ten different things a Vice-Chancellor, and by inference, what an Academic should not do to ensure sustainability in education.