But for the royal intervention of the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, and the gubernatorial pleas of former Ekiti state Governor, Engr. Segun Oni, the four-year old Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), a modern model Centre of academic excellence currently valued at N80 billion, would have been sited outside Ekiti state.
The Founder of the university, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, who made the startling revelation when the COREN Pre-accreditation Visitation Team visited the Ewi in his over the weekend recalled how an un-named state government had allocated him large hectares of land with promises of other mouth-watering and near irresistible offers to lure him into sitting the urbane university in that un-named state.
Babalola confessed that but for the emotional, financial and spiritual support of the royal father, the university would have been sited outside the shores of Ado-Ekiti, an ancient city he described as the 11th largest city in the pre-1960 Nigeria before all manners of census manipulation crept in.
Having set up the university, the frontline legal icon said that it is a combination of faith and ‘we can do it spirit’ that has sustained the university. His words: “This University is a product of faith. It is not as if I have N80 billion, the current value of infrastructures on ground today. I don’t even have a quarter of it. But I have faith that we can do it and the result is what we have on ground today”.
Relying on the Global Universities Webometrics ranking which has rated ABUAD as the fastest growing university in Africa, Babalola enthused that the university currently has 49 programmes while those licenced about the same time with it can only boast of seven of such programmes.
He therefore called on COREN to always emphasise the place and import of inspirational engineering in the quest for Nigeria to take its rightful place in the comity of nations.
Oba Adejugbe who confirmed that Babalola has fulfilled his promise to reform and change the face of education, particularly at the tertiary level in Nigeria, appealed to people who are blessed like the legal icon to replicate what Babalola has done in Ado-Ekiti in the other geo-political zones of the country.
By so doing, the royal father believed they would like Babalola, who has more than 1,000 people in his employ, assist in reducing the grinding rate of employment and mitigating the scourge of poverty in the country.
The leader of the Pre-accreditation Visitation Team, Prof. Ayo Fanimokun, pleaded with Oba Adejugbe and his peers round the country to add their voice to impress it on the Federal Government to accord engineering its pride of place in the scheme of things in the country.
According to Fanimokun, engineering is very important to grow, develop and move a country forward, adding that “this is the practice in more advanced countries of the world and Nigeria cannot afford to be left behind.
“We need your support for the proper funding of engineering practice in Nigeria”.
(Ends)
Signed
Tunde Olofintila.
Director, Public Affairs.
