From Kayemo News
The founder and Chancellor of the Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola has said that it was his attempt to correct some of these ills bedeviling the Nigerian educational landscape that made him to establish ABUAD to be an example of what a university, properly so called, should be.
Aare Babalola spoke on Thursday at the general orientation for the fresh students for the 2026/2027 academic session held at the Alfa Belgore multi -purpose hall of the university.
The legal icon who lamented the deteriorating state of the country public universities due to years of neglect and lack of funding, said this accounted for why he ensured ABUAD took off in its permanent site “with aesthetic buildings, beautiful environment, unmatchable teaching equipment and experienced teachers of international standard.
“Equally, it is for the same reason that we remain the only university running an Annual Teaching Methodology Workshop with seasoned and experience Lecturers as Resource Persons, a development that has since been commended by NUC.
“We are therefore not surprised that the National Universities Commission, NUC, the Regulatory Authority for University Education in Nigeria, has acknowledged our university as “a model, benchmark and reference point” as well as “the pride of University system in Nigeria” and endorsed by the Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) as “the most successful private university in Nigeria”. UNESCO also acknowledged it as “a world class institution of Higher Education”.
He said that the university has been receiving accolades for setting the pace on how a university should be run, adding that this has also been attested to by the three superlative partnerships/collaborations the university consummated with leading tertiary institutions across the globe within this year alone.
“The first was the tripartite Medical Training Agreement Among John Hopkins Hospital, USA, Little-By-Little Foundation and Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti for Elective Clinical Training in the United States on January 10, 2023.
“The July 28, 2023, signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between King’s College, University of London, and Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, towards the establishment of the Afe Babalola African Centre for Transnational Education for which I had earlier donated the sum of £10million to lift indigent African students from the pangs of ignorance, lack, want and poverty through quality education, and
“The October 19, 2023 signing of another Memorandum of Understanding between your University and Trinity Western University, TWU, Canada, which flagged off with an International Conference on Global Leadership and Governance for Job and Wealth Creation for Sustainable Change.”
Aare Afe Babalola thanked the parents for choosing and sending their children/wards to “ABUAD to be taught, moulded and mentored into stars and mega stars like those who have passed through this citadel of Academic Excellence before you.
“We remain grateful that they have looked in our direction as the place to have their children/wards trained out of the several Federal, State, Faith-based and Private Universities in the country today. I want to assure our dear parents that we will not disappoint them.
“At the end of the students’ sojourn here, all of us – the parents, teachers and the students themselves – will be happy because of the quantum of Academic, Leadership and Entrepreneurial training that we would have inculcated into the students.
“I am bold to say and without any iota of equivocation that this is the University to be, a University where dreams are rapidly translated into reality, a university devoid of strike actions, a university with predictable and reliable Academic calendar, a university that has its own power supply system, a university where all the students are resident on campus!”
He charged the fresh students to learn from those that have graduated before them: “My charge to you is that we need more of Popoolas from among you. We want a repeat of all these attainments by your predecessors by you. If those before you could do it, you can do it better and faster.
“Like I have told all those before you, you must learn to dream big. It is not a crime to dream big, but it is an unpardonable sin not to dream at all. The sky is not the limit; it is the take off point for you. I am waiting to celebrate you right in this Hall in the nearest future.
“But it may be difficult for you to attain the heights unless you are highly disciplined, and discipline means keeping to the rules. Here, there are rules as to when to go to class, rules as to when to eat, rules concerning when you go for Sports, rules as to when not to use telephones and rules as to when to go to bed. All these rules, which must be obeyed in observance and not in the breach, are meant to assist you grow and be the best you can be in ABUAD,” he said.