THE imperatives for a consensual process to rectify the glory of our collapsing educational system to a level that will make our degree acceptable outside our shores may have prompted Chief Afe Babalola ( SAN) to establish the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, (ABUAD) which today, has become a reference point in comparative analysis of assessing old and new universities in Nigeria.Today, the mustard seed which Aare Babalola, planted at the commencement of academic activities on its permanent site on Afe Babalola Way, Ado Ekiti, January 4, 2010 has grown into an awesome, durable oak tree.While the planning of ABUAD was at its embryonic stage less than two years before structures started to sprout from its permanent site, with perfect symmetrical plan, many who believed in Babalola's passionate commitment to educational development were of the opinion that Afe has the ace to the pole, in making ABUAD a citadel of knowledge with limitless opportunities.With the mushrooming of private universities all over the country, ABUAD, which has risen to high at three, is a dream come true, as the less prepared others have become palpable nightmares. We have seen a few cases of some cheap imitation of universities, whose accreditation licences are granted and withdrawn on and off, but ABUAD has proven that it is not just another university. It is a tertiary institution that has impregnated glamour, in stylish pace, into the spurt of tertiary educational management.With ABUAD in existence, and the roof-top level it intends to hang our educational standards, it's certain that in a few years, we will see academic decadence disappearing into a distance and our academic el dorado a pole distance within reach.The university, having raised the bar in the ambit of our educational aspirations, as a leading light in the academic sector, would have then shown the way to some universities still shooting the breeze, struggling to find their way.Though ABUAD is yet to reach the end of its depth in its set goal of achieving high standard academic level, its present standard, set within three years of our existence, is a testimony that it has gone ballistic, earning accreditation for almost all courses, among which are: Law; Medicine and Health Sciences. Social and Management Sciences; Sciences; Engineering; Agriculture; Art and Education. I was at ABUAD recently when Chief Babalola asked his Chief Security Officer (CSO) to take me round to see the infrastructure on ground at the university. The visit coincided with the time Senator Femi Ojudu visited, and so was also taken round for a similar purpose. I marvelled at what I saw.At the Law College, what I saw in the Library was familiar to what I saw at Yale and Harvard universities when I was on a seminar tour to the US in August 1984. And when I saw the Yale and Harvard reference segment at ABUAD e-library, I became convinced that Aare Babalola has something up his sleeves, to lift up law studies in Nigeria. And it has to be so because with ABUAD's College of Law e-mail library facilities and other facilities, including high quality law lecturers, Babalola is playing the suburban game in which he is a genius.This much was confirmed by the NUC Executive Secretary, Professor Julius Okojie when on his recent visit to ABUAD Law College, he said, 'I came to visit the Law Faculty of this institution and I am marvelled with the books and facilities provided at the faculty. It is certainly the best Law College in West Africa. I want to believe that the faculty got all these things because of the pedigree of the owner of the university. That is why we tell people not to dabble into what they don't know. I know they also have good facilities for other faculties and I am impressed with what I saw because what they have here can be compared with the best anywhere in the world.'Aare Babalola, the iconic legal encyclopaedia, philanthropist and educationist, has been very proud to unveil the incontrovertible fact that ABUAD will make history as the 'first university, whose students earned degrees in three and half years.' And that will come into fruition in June 2013 when it churns out its estimated 235 first graduates.In all, Aare Babalola's aspirations to take the university to a high level, has put him on the same page with his dainty, workaholic pioneer Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sidi Osho, regarded as the Iron Lady of the university community, whose resolve is to ensure excellence, high academic and moral standards for the university. And that aspiration has been manifestably visible. To me, I will describe Professor Osho as the stunning Cleopatra of our time. A sticker for standard and discipline, the 'impossibilities made possible,' self-made Afe has the dream of establishing ABUAD as a means of practising by example, how problems militating against the growth of Nigerian Universities can be solved and wanted to effectuate this in the philosophy of 'leading by example.' This was why he has got all infrastructure on ground at its permanent site before the commencement of operations, as opposed to the practice whereby some universities exist only in name with no infrastructure of their own, operating from rented buildings.As a former Pro-Chancellor of UNILAG, Afe was able to gain insight into the myriad of problems confronting tertiary education in the country ' problems such as indiscipline, cultism, strikes, unstable university calendar and inadequate funding ' all of which have adversely affected the quality of education in Nigerian universities.
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