By Sola Ajisafe, Esq
I was at Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, yesterday for an important function. I felt proud about what one man can do, and angry at what government has failed to do.
The Ado/Ijan Road, now known as “Afe Babalola Way,” is an eyesore. It serves a Federal Polytechnic, a world-class private university, the Ekiti Golf Club, an Agricultural Settlement, and multiple government establishments. Yet neither the Federal Government nor the Ekiti State Government has treated it as a priority. For 16 years since ABUAD was established, this critical corridor has been left to rot. This is not just bad infrastructure. It is ingratitude.
Aare Afe Babalola, OFR, CON, SAN, LL. D (London), Fellow, King’s College, London, FNAE, is Ekiti’s most significant living contribution to Nigeria and the world. A local boy who conquered poverty and the legal profession and was recognized by leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II. At 97, he has built what no government in Nigeria has matched.
Over the past 16 years, he has created employment and sundry opportunities on a scale that rivals the state itself. ABUAD currently employs more than 2,500 academic and non-academic staff, with over 5,000 additional support staff working as cleaners, artisans, drivers, farm hands, and others. That employment base has turned the institution into one of the largest private employers in Ekiti.
The university’s impact has not gone unnoticed. It has been ranked No. 1 in Nigeria by Times Higher Education Impact Rankings for four consecutive years: 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, No. 3 in Africa, and No. 84 globally. Those rankings reflect not just academic output but the university’s role in advancing healthcare, research, and community development.
In healthcare, ABUAD operates an ultra-modern 400-bed Multi-system Hospital ( AMSH) that has become a referral center for the country. The hospital runs an MRI unit, CT-Scanners, Digital X-Ray machines, 17 Dialysis machines, and has performed over 400 dialysis procedures. Just two weeks ago, more renal transplants were successfully performed to make a total of 50 renal transplants carried out without complications for donors or recipients in ABUAD. The center also performs cardio-thoracic surgeries and runs an IVF clinic.
Beyond the hospital, Aare Afe Babalola established the Afe Abiye free antenatal program for women in Ekiti State, a model like Ondo’s Mother and Child scheme. This scheme ensures that thousands of women receive care without cost. He also established two hospital annexes at Odo Ado (Igirigiri) and Basiri all within Ado Ekiti metropolis.
His philanthropic contributions to Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, and Ekiti State University coupled with yearly empowerment programmes for Ekiti State farmers, traders, artisans and scholarships for students are monumental and second to none.
Where government infrastructure has failed, ABUAD stepped in. The university runs an Independent Power Plant, IPP, that ensures uninterrupted power supply to the University, the Multi-System Hospital, the ABUAD Integrated Farms, and the 12- Unit Industrial Research Park. It is not connected to the national grid. It also runs a private dam that meets the water needs of the university and its associated outlets.
The Industrial Park and a fully integrated farm produce vegetables, fruits such as pepper, mangoes, papaya and tomatoes, livestock including birds, fish and other animals, and processed products like flour, cassava, plantain, rice, pepper, and cashew nuts for local consumption and export. The farm even has its own feed mill for livestock, and the institution is involved in recycling to sustain its operations.
The economic multiplier effect is evident. ABUAD attracts students from all 36 states and the FCT, as well as from countries including the US, China, and across Africa.
To further open up the State, Aare Afe Babalola personally contributed N2 billion for landing equipment at the newly established Ekiti Cargo Airport and N450 million for the construction of its current car park.
This is what one man did for Ekiti without waiting for Abuja or Ado-Ekiti. He even provided his house as the take-off administrative office for the State university at inception.
And what did Ekiti and the Federal Government do in return? They left the road to his university unmotorable.
Governor Biodun Oyebanji is widely regarded as an Omoluabi. Unlike two of his predecessors, he has publicly shown respect for Aare Afe Babalola, prostrating for him in line with Yoruba ethos. But respect without action is empty. Governor Oyebanji recently delivered a lecture at ABUAD yet avoided the Ado/Ijan Road entirely and came through the bypass. That tells you everything.
President Bola Tinubu is an alumnus of ABUAD, having received an Honorary Doctorate from the university, together with His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto, His Royal Majesty, Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe (Agbogidi), the Obi of Onitsha, Prof. Anthony Adegbulugbe, an Erudite Scholar, Energy Expert, Serial Entrepreneur in 2019.
The Federal Ministry of Works claimed to have awarded the road two years ago, then passed it to FERMA. Since then, silence. Nothing has been done.
So, I ask: How does a country honor its heroes while they are alive? The best gift Ekiti State and the Federal Government can give Aare Afe Babalola at almost a century is not another plaque or title. It is to fix the 8.5km road that bears his name so he can drive on it, and so the students, parents, patients, staff, and investors who keep ABUAD running don’t destroy their vehicles and waste their lives in traffic and dust.
Anything short of immediate resumption and completion of work on this road is a dent on Governor Oyebanji and Minister David Umahi. It tells the world that Nigeria celebrates its builders only in speeches, not in deeds.
Ekiti opened its doors to the world because of ABUAD. The least the world can expect in return is a road that works.
Fix Afe Babalola Way. Now. While the man is alive to see and feel it.
Oloroogun Sola Ajisafe, Lawyer/Journalist. He is from Oka Akoko, lives and practices law in Akure, Ondo State.