The President and Vice-Chancellor, Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State, Professor Ademola Tayo, has said the real determining factor to know whether a university is a quack or not anywhere globally is the quality of its graduates, research activities and community services and not mere name of the owner.
He said for anybody such as the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, to be calling state government-owned and private universities in the country quack just as he had done recently on national television is unfortunate.
He described such utterance as a fallacy as it lacks substance
Prof Ademola gave this view on Wednesday in Ilishan-Remo while fielding questions from newsmen at the school’s 6323 founder’s daily news conference.
He referred to Babcock University, a faith-based institution, saying the high quality of graduates that the university has produced in its 23 years of establishment has qualified it to be among the top-rated universities in Africa.
He said the graduates of the school are doing well in their respective fields of endeavours both in private and public sectors around the world.
He said many of them had also demonstrated their academic excellence and good character during their postgraduate studies in and outside Nigeria including at the Nigeria Law School and other institutions around the world by winning prizes at graduation.
He said Okezi Uwede-Meshack for example got a distinction in LLM at North Western University, USA; Sophia Abiri-Franklin, a doctoral student, won the Queen Elizabeth Scholars scholarship from Carleton University, Canada in 2022; Okei Gabriel won the best overall (distinction) grade in the LLM Programme at University of Birmingham UK and Bamise Onabanjo was the Convocation Class Speaker for LLM class 2021 at Duke University, the USA to mention just a few.
Prof Tayo explained further that the faculty members of the university are also competing favourably with their counterparts from around the world.
Given reference, he named Prof Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onobia as the winner of the 2021 Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) prize for Literature (worth $100,000); and Dr Oluwafemi Ezekiel Kale of the Department of Pharmacology won $19,000 grant cycle for two years and Dr Oluwatoyin Fasesan winning a grant of $50,000 for the year 2021 with the project titled “Psychosis GWAS among Yorubas in Southwestern, among numerous others.
The vice-chancellor added that the university is also committed to its host communities by giving up to 20 indigenes of Ilisan- Remo who’re indigent but brilliant every year scholarship to study their dream courses and also involve community projects and security matters.
“So, quality of graduates in the world of work and other lawful engagements will say if a university is a quack or not and not by the founder,” Prof Ademola emphasised.
He, however, said the essence of the 6323 founder’s day is to use the occasion to thank God for His tremendous support given to the school from when it was a college 63 years ago and 23 years as a university and equally pray for more support for the future and also showcase its achievements.
“And we shall remain grateful unto God for being on our sides all along,” he stressed.
He listed some of the events for the occasion including the anniversary lecture, which was delivered by Prof Michael Omolewa, former Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO; cultural day and the thanksgiving service scheduled for tomorrow.
Tribune
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