To the founder, Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), October 21 is a significant day in his life.“I have observed that October 21 has a lot to do with my destiny,” Babalola announced to the excited gathering at the university’s second convocation.
“It has always been a good day in my life. Anyday I have a judgment to be delivered and it falls on that day, rest assured I am going to win the case,” he added.
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Little wonder that precisely a year (October 21, 2013), after ABUAD held its maiden convocation, graduating 130 from the Colleges of Sciences and Social and Management Sciences, the university graduated another 336 students from the Colleges of Law, Sciences and Social and Management Sciences last Tuesday.
The vision..in motion
Besides Aare Babalola attachment to the date, ABUAD’s commitment to uninterrupted academic calendar, Babalola explained, is due to the university’s determination to ensure that students graduate as and at when due.
“I want to specially thank you (parents and guardians) for believing in me and in particular for choosing ABUAD, which was only a year out of 136 older universities in this country four years ago. You believed that ABUAD would provide quality education without any disruption in academic calendar. “You were right! It is a fact that those who registered at the same time with your children in other universities may still be in their second or third year; but your children are graduating on schedule. There is no extra week, day, hour or minute. This is why so many students, who took JAMB examination this year chose ABUAD as the university of first choice. ABUAD which is only four years old came second out of 50 private universities so chosen.”
According to Babalola, his foray into university education has opened his eyes to the realisation that people are opposed to change. Nonetheless, Babalola said this has not dampened his spirit, noting that the university management remains relentless in its crusade to ensure that the right culture is inculcated.
Over the last one year, Babalola said the university has attained greatness, increasing its manpower from 750 to 1,500, while students enrollment increased from 2,000 to 3, 750. The legal luminary added that the university also established a multi-million naira Talent Discovery Centre that has over 29 vocations, and its five-star Guest House, which cost N2.5 billion during the period.
He urged guests to visit the university farm, which he described as a shining example of how an ideal internally-generated revenue could be initiated and sustained by tertiary institutions.
He expressed happiness that the nearly five-year-old university scored 100 per cent accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC), and was the first university to secure full accreditation in Medicine at just one visit by the NUC.
The university’s best graduating student, Miss Ogunbusola Oluwatosin Joy, who had a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.96, attributed her feat to the support from her alma mater and her parents.
“I wish to thank Afe Babalola University and our lecturers for their untiring efforts ever since this journey began. I also wish to thank my parents, who stood by me through thick and thin, as well as my course mates and other graduands. I wish to say that the journey has just begun. We should not relent. We must be encouraged to trudge on because the sky is our limit,”she said.
Though Oluwatosin said she would not reject the offer of automatic employment given her by alma mater; yet she would love to do her masters programme immediately before considering further plans.
ABUAD’s Acting Vice-Chancellor, Prof Michael Ajisafe, said 334 students graduated. Of the lot, 47, comprising 37 females and 10 males, had First Class. One hundred and twenty eight, and 113 bagged second class upper and second class lower degrees, while 16 made third class.
Ajisafe said ABUAD has continued to blaze the trail, winning numerous awards and getting a clean bill from professional bodies.
Ajisafe’s predecessor and pioneer Vice-Chancellor, Prof Sidi Osho, who was in attendance, urged the graduands to keep the university flag flying and continue to be good ambassadors of their alma mater.
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